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MATTABESECK. MIDDLETOWN. 



A DESCRIPTION OF THE EXERCISES 



CONNECTED WITH THE 




eereBER lo and n, 1900. 



THE TRIBUNE COMPANY, 
MIDDLETOWN, CONN. 




IIN^TRODUCTTOTsr. 



As many of the citizens of this town have requested that a report of the 
exercises connected with the Two Hundred and Fiftieth Anniversary of the 
Town of Middletown might be preserved in i)ermanent form, The Tribune 
Company issues this book in tlie hope that it may meet this request:. The 
report is in the main the same as that which appeared in the columns of The 
Tribune at the time, though some of the descriptions have been|amplified. 
The historical article is also enlarged so as to include some material which was 
omitted in the first article. There has been, however, no attempt to encroach 
upon the history of the town, which is being prepared by " The Committee on 
First Settlers," and which will appear later. 

The Tribune Company. 




d 






Two Hundred and Fiftieth Anniversary. 



booming of the cannon and ringing of the bells on the morning of 
Wednesday, October lo, at 7 o'clock, ushered in th' ' ' o( ihe two 
days devoted to the two hundred and fiftieth anniv . , .f the settle- 
4iient of the town. 

For several weeks previous preparations had been n^dr for thj proper 
observance of that occasion. The idea of a celebrati i.ii .jtioned in 

the columns of The Tribune some fifteen mo* . ■.■-'■. j.t was next 

broatched at a meeting of the Ladies' Literarv Club and by one of their 
members to a Daughter of the American Revol iiion. The Regent of Wads- 
worth Chapter, D. A. R., Mrs. James H. Bur ^ invited a few friends to her 
house, and at that meeting the celebration ii)ovement ained new impetus. 
A meeting was called a few days later at the residen< c of Former Governor 
•Coffin and the matter discussed. It was decided to 'old a celebration which 
-should include this town and Portland, Chatham, Cromwell, and Middlefield, 
which were originally parts of this town. 

A general committee was then formed and the work begun. That com- 
mittee was subdivided into special committees and the various details arranged. 
The various sub-committees of the general committee were : 

Com7nittee on Plaiu Scope and General Management — Hon. O. Vincent 
Coffin, Chairman ; Frank B. Wrecks, Secretary; Seward V. Coffin, Assistant 
Secretary; Rev. Azel W. Hazen, D. D., Richard L. deZeng, Jiidge Daniel 
J. Donahoe. 

Committee on Finance — Seth H. Butler, Chairman ; William H. Burrows, 
James K. Guy, Henry H. Smith, Revilo C. Markham, Samuel T. Camp, 
Charles E. Jackson, George A. Coles, Isaac E. Palmer, Herbert L. Camp, 
William W. Wilcox, Jr., James Donovan, Thomas Kelly 2d, Eugene H. Burr. 

Committee on Literary Exercises — Rev. Azel W. Hazen, D. D., Chairman ; 
Rev. William N. Rice, Ph. D., LL. D., Rev. Samuel Hart, D. D., Rev. B. P. 
Raymond, D. D., LL. D., Rev. E. Campion Acheson, M. A., Rev. Richmond 
Fisk, D. D., Rev. Frederick W. Greene, Rev. John Binney, D. D., Judge D. 
J. Donahoe, Judge Wesley U. Pearne, Eldon B. Birdsey, William W. Wilcox. 

Committee on Music — Edward G. Camp, Chairmm ; Clarence E. Bacon, 
Henry C. Ward. 

Committee on Parade — General Charles P. Graham. Chairman and Grand 
Marshal ; Henry P. Bliss, Nathan H. Smith, John C. Broatch, Josiah M. 
Hubbard, John G. Pelton, Eddie S. Davis, Michael W. Lawton, William B. 
Brewer, Ralph A. Blydenburgh. John G. Palmer, J. Francis Calef, M. D., 
Joseph T. Elliott, Elijah K. Hubbard, Jr., Richard Davis, Charles E. Bacon, 
Joseph Merriam, Andrew W. Budde, Walter R. Markham, Edwin J. Roberts, 
Frederick Meyers, George E. Spaulding, Richard Coleman, Frank E. Board- 
man, Julius C. Atkins, Thomas M. Durfee, Elmore R. Chaffee, G. Ellsworth. 
-Meech, Richard J. Maher, Julian N. Cressman. 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFriEl'H ANNIVERSARY. 5 

Committee on First Sett/ers a//t/ Tlwir Descendants — Charles A. Pelton, 
Chairman ; Frank Farnsworth Starr, Stephen 15. Davis, Robert N. Jackson, 
Conrad (i. Bacon. 

Committee on Invitation and Reception — Hon. Samuel Russell, Chairman ; 
ludye William T. Elmer, Judge Silas A. Robinson, Hon. Frederick P. Burr, 
Hon. Charles R. Woodward. Hon. D. Ward Northro[), Hon. Charles G. R. 
Vinal, Hon. Henrv K. Wei-ks, Rev. Herbert VV'elch, Rev. Raymond Maples- 
den, Prof. John M. Van Vleck, LL. D., M. Eugene Culver, Michael Wall, 
Samuel Russell, Jr., T. Macdonough Russell, Wdliam J. deMauriac, George 
A. Craig. 

Committee on Peimanent Memorial — Elijah K. Hubbard, Chairman ; 
Henry Woodward, Rev. Samuel Hart, D. D.. Rev. John Townsend, M. A., 
Prof. Caleb T. Winchester, LL. 1)., Frank D. Edge'rton, M. D., Walter B. 
Hubbani. 

Cemmittee on Decorations — Hon. I). L\ither Briggs, Chairman : Wingate 
C. Howard. Charles W. >\^arner, John 'P. W^alsh, Henry C. Beebe, Charles F. 
Merrill. 

Committee on Printing:; — W'ilbiu" 1^'. Burrows, Chairman ; James P. Stow, 
James Law ton. 

Committee on Loan Exhiin'tion — Albert R. Crittenden. Chairman ; Samuel 
Russell, Jr., Gaston T. Hulibard. Henrv C. Beebe. Fldward H. Martin, 
William W. Van Deusen, (ieorge H. Hulbert. G. Tracy Hubbard, Frank C. 
Whittlesev, Eldridye S. Ferree, Addison G. McKee, Mrs. John C. Van Ben- 
schoten. Mrs. O. Vincent Coffin, Mrs John Townsend, Mrs. Elmer G. Derby, 
Mrs. Nellie A. Douglas, Mrs. James H. Bunce, Miss Lucy C. Alsop, Miss 
Mariana Townsend, Mrs. ¥. K. Hallock for Cromwell, Miss Mary Lyman for 
Middlefield. Mrs. William H. Bevin for East Hampton, Dr. and Mrs. Levi 
Jewett for East Hampton. John H. Sage for Portland. 

Committee on Collation — Lvman D. Mills, Chaii-man ; George L Allen, 
Thomas \V. McDowell, George 1\ Meech, Claude B. King, William Jamieson, 
Charles C. Trvon, Robert P. Hubbard, Sherman M. Bacon, Charles Fitzgerald, 
Edward A. Gladwin, Thomas Walsh, Leonard Bailey, M. D., E. Burton Fall, 
Denison I. CJha|)man, Gilbert F. Peckham, Isaac Spear, Charles Ritchie. 

Committee on Press — Charles F. Merrill, Chairman ; Ralph BIydenburgh, 
Thomas P. Bill. 

Members of the General Committee — Charles W. Page, ^L D . Mebin B. 
Copeland, Rev. B. O'R. Sheridan, William G. Fairbanks, Archibald W. 
Inglis, Geordie S. Pitt, Rev. Ferdinand Scholander, Rev. Carl Blecher. Daniel 
W. Prior, William B. Douglass, Walter B Ferguson. A. B. . Frank D. Haines, 
Henry L. Mansfield, Martin Loveland, Rev. S. E. Robinson, Rev. H. A. 
Morgan. 



As a result of the efforts of this committee, aided by an appropriation of 
one thousand dollars from the town, and the contributions of a number of 
■citizens, the celebration became a reality, and a most pronounced success. 

The decorations were most elaborate, surpassing any ever seen in this 
State before. 

The celebration was arranged into two days. The literary exercises were 
on Wednesday, Octo'.)er lo, and the grand parade on Thursday, October ii. 

The exercises on Wednesday were opened by a high celebration of the 
Holy ComiiTinion with Festival Te Deum at the Church of the Holy Trinity 
at 7:30 A. .\i , the Rev. E. Campion Acheron, M. A., celebrant. 



6 TWO HaNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY. 

A-t 9 o'clock there was a special service at St. John's Church. There was 
a mass of Thanksgiving and the Te Deum. The musical program was : 

Solemn High Mass at 9 o'clock. 
Processional — Holy God, We Praise Thy Name. 

Kyrie Eleison , . . . Hayden 

Gloria in ExcelgJs Deo Hayden 

Credo Hayden 

Offertory, Solo, J. E. McKenna Gounod 

Sanctus Hayden 

Agnus Dei Hayden 

Te Deum Lambelotte 

Recessional. 

Star Spangled Banner. 

The soloists were John E. McKenna, Miss Margaret Borden and Mrs. A> 
J. Campbell. 

The celebrant was Rev. B. O'R Sheridan, who was assisted by Rev. 
Fathers McGivney and Walsh. The following address, which was a most 
excellent one, was delivered by the Rev. Edward Flannery of the Connecticut 
Mission : 

My Brethren — Let it not seem strange that, whispering through the 
glad refrain which greets your festal day with joyous acclaim, the murmur of a 
sacred voice is heard swelling the exulting chorus. Let it not be held un- 
worthy for the Church of God to hail with resounding welcome the sunrise 
which sheds a halo of glorious light around this anniversary of the foundation^ 
of your city. Let it not be unbefitting for priests of the Lord to vie in 
generous rivalry with ministers of the State, weaving honorable wreaths to be- 
deck a history of two centuries and fifty years — a history wherein men of faith 
struggled shoulder to shoulder with men of might in establishing and transmit- 
ting to posterity the inheritance of enduring progress which gives to your cele- 
bration to-day its significances and reason. Religion has the right to send 
forth her word to-day, a right she purchased by contributing in no small 
degree to the welfare of the beloved town whose birthday these festivities are- 
recalling. 

For why, in truth, should memory, tripping lightly over years that have 
fled, be glad to-day and think of the past with smiling ? If it were length of 
days alone upon which one centered thought, then would yonder river with 
laughing ripple put your boast to scorn, as it counts iis age and tells of the 
races it knew centuries before it carried your ancestors upon its bosom. If it 
were endurance alone, resistance to destructive forces, that gave cause for joy,, 
written upon yon neighboring hill is the story of a victorious struggle against 
fiercer foes, nature battling against natute, and the mountains that resisted the 
shock might bid you hush your vaunting. It is not simple growth, for then the 
fields with their returning verdure might have something to say in contradic- 
tion. No, rejoicing bubbles forth from only one true source, a source tinctured 
with religion ; it is the realization that the work of your forefathers has been 
put to the test of time, and two hundred and fifty years of universal advance 
bear eloquent evidence to the fruitfulness of the principles that drove them to- 
lay the foundation of )our city. 

Those principles were grounded upon religious conviction. The fore- 
fatheis believed in God, and that faith, while to them a personal support, was- 
also the mighty sun that sent a glinmier of eternal light through their every 
act and motive. Because they grounded their plans upon belief in God, all 
faithful men, no matter what their descent, nor whence they sprang, may par- 
ticipate in your rejoicing to-day, as sharers of the benefits of dwelling here as 
witnesses to the productiveness of faith of hailing from elsewhere. 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY. 7 

The type of men that founded this town gripped faith to God with so 
steadfast and withal so personal a hold, that it is difficult to estimate how 
large a space was filled in their lives by this belief in the Almighty. They 
knew God as no dim speck upon the distant horizon. He was so near that 
they seemed to touch Him with their very hand. Like the all-embracing air, 
God's presence enveloped them as with a mantle. They stared in the very 
eyes of the Eternal Judge ; they felt a bodily warmth when a Provident 
Father seemed to shield from danger with His protecting care ; the gentle 
zephyrs of God's loving breath beat against the cheek that soon turned to the 
chilling blasts of savage-beset regions. It was the thought of God that em- 
boldened the faltering heart to penetrate the wilds where death was skulking. 
Because He was nigh ; because His was the hand that led them savingly on ; 
they banished fear in meeting trials that only staunch hearts would venture to 
encounter. Take your records and read what they came hither to meet. Set- 
tlements above, settlements below this point, but here a dreaded and shunned 
spot, protected from the white man's approach by the hostile savagery that 
resented his coming. The Indian enmity overreaches itself at last when 
repeated crimes against undefended travelers attract the retributive notice of 
those who were strong to punish. The location thus was thrown upon public 
view, and a mere handful of hardy settlers, undaunted by the brooding 
destruction that hovered in the surrounding woods, cast together their fortune 
and founded here your dwelling. What need had they for fear of man when 
the God they feared was no more distant here than in populous, fortified 
cities ? Under the shadow of his protecting wing they might fall calmly to 
slumber, confident that the eye they served was watching to warn of approach- 
ing danger; or if harm befell, the voice that rang constantly in their ear 
would bid them sweetly to their eternal resting. With such a mind, life, with 
all its hardships, was rendered, if not easy, at least bearable, because the 
Master was looking on, and death itself held little terror since it was the gate- 
way leading to their Father's home. Unless this was their belief, how may 
we account for the little company that shrank from no odds, fled from no 
peril, paled before no foe in the endeavor to rear in the new world no palace 
gilded with pilfered store, but a home where a family might nestle and speak 
of the God they knew without fear of persecution ? 

This nearness of God bred in the believer such a sense of responsibility 
that every motive seemed to be directly referable to an all-surveying divinity. 
As evidence, the garments worn had a religious cut, and though this might 
appear a trivial thing, it only bears out the impression that God was the over- 
seer of all, even the simplest action. Under that impression, imbued with the 
consciousness of their responsibility, what wonder if their handiwork was 
constructed to withstand the test of time? They builded, not for a day, but, 
I might fairly say, for eternity. If laws were to be enacted for the safe- 
guarding of the community, the Enactment must not seek sole inspiration from 
temporal motives and expedient reasons. The never-changing law of God, 
based on undying justice, would serve as a model, for what heaven approved 
must in the end work to the advantage of all. The very houses, thrown up 
roughly, seemed intended to share in some manner the eternal duration, so 
strongly were ihey constructed. Stability was stamped upon all their under- 
takings, for they labored in the presence of the Divine Taskmaster, according 
to rules they learned from him. Setting their institutions upon this eternal 
base, where is the surprise that their workmanship perdures and their labor 
thrives, even down to the present ? 

It was a truth-loving race, which is only another way of expressing how 
sensible they were of their accountibility to the God of truth, who abominates 



8 TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY. 

the false and the deceptive. We repeat that they were lovers of truth, and 
though we may disagree on the definition of the word, yet must it be confessed 
that the truth they knew was the star that gave them guidance. Now it is 
only the false that disappears. What is untrue only appears to be — it is 
brushed aside and ceases to exist when the sun of verity rises. The winds 
have no pity for the gaudy tinsel with which falsehood adorns its sable cloak, 
but sends the tawdry stuff flying down the breeze of annihilation. So what 
vanishes is in some way unreal, since all truth emanating from God must be as 
immortal as the source of its being. Since, therefore, our fathers, in founding 
this little portion of our similarly founded country, were moved mainly by 
considerations of truth, it has happened that the great body of their work has 
come down to us, while the parts which have been swept away by progress in 
its tide had been laid on by the hand that ignorance of craft or imperfect 
methods of training ill taught to strike. Much has continued to exist of ail 
they set in motion, because in general they followed the basic truths that are 
born from a right faith in God; more has come down to the present, because 
in good faith they worked in the gloom that necessarily attended their day 
when they confidently imagined they were laboring in sunlight ; some things 
have vanished, like the airy tenants of an idle dream, where fallacious, vision 
distorted the outlines. The rock of truth upon which they built still remains, 
glistening in the mid-day light of the present age, its sides whitened and made 
pleasant to view by the waves of years that tore away the barnacles of error. 
Because sincerity with God ruled their lives, the great schemes into which they 
threw heart and soul must have rested upon some pinnacle which the hand of 
the Lord set up, and supported by the secret purposes of Heaven, ihey 
achieved results far beyond their reckoning As illustrative, take the great 
desire which led them to foster the idea of giving free pinions to worship. 
Liberty of conscience, the right to adore God according to the light which 
Heaven lends, hatred of religious persecution, these are the questions which 
it is neither the time nor the place now to discuss. The early settlers, impreg- 
nated with the true religious spirit that disdains to behold the al'ar propped 
up by the secular throne; to see religion a creature of state, looking for 
patronage and living on mundane favor; to know that servile men wait upon 
the Lord for social or courtly advancement, the early settlers despising the 
mockery of it all, fled from the enervating climate that shatters true faith, and 
crossed the seas where they might answer with natural voices the words which 
God Himself let fall upon their hearing. Having fled from persecution, they 
sought to do away with the occasion that had forced theai into exile. They 
would not persecute; at least that was the announcement, and though a fact or 
two might appear to contradict the assertion, after the very earliest times, for 
which excuse might easily be urged, the freedom thev recommended gradually 
was interwoven into the warp and woof of their customs. 

Herein, we may find how the leaven of God was fermenting. The Lord 
wished a faithful race to serve Him for Himself alone. Incidentally, He 
desired to begin the development of a sturdy stock that should be exemplars 
of virtues until their time lacking full cultivation. As a prime prerequisite 
there were needed independence of spirit and fearlessness of character. God 
wanted men to love Him with the pure love, which is regardless of the com- 
ments, the plaudits or the jeering of the multitudes. To discover such a 
people it was needed to create a new world, and our land was called into 
knowledge. The primeval forests were cleared away by men, who, as we saw, 
feared God alone and were fearless of aught other. That fearlessness was to 
be the understructure upon which a noble type should be elevated. Not 
dreading any other than God, the new race possessed, even at that early day, 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY. 9 

the independence that in the passing of years would be turned to God's advan- 
tage. But first note how the gift of Heaven promoted the advancement of the 
-country at large, as it assured the prosperity which gives your town this occa- 
sion for grateful celebration. For with independence of character was born 
as a mate the determination to progress despite all resisting forces. The lone 
paddler, loosing his frail canoe at the head of yonder stream, drifting down 
with the hurrying tide, unmindful of the hostile forms that peer from the 
wooded banks, undeterred by the unfriendly winds that would wreck his craft, 
unwearied by the monotony ot the rhythmic dip of the falling oar, unfed and 
yet un romplaining, worn out and yet not resting, till his craft grates on the 
sand of this inhospitable shore, which his touch, as if by magic power, shall 
transform into a beauteous city; that paddles is the product, as is the people 
which he represents, of heavenly influence by which God leads over wa\s of 
independent and yet faithful love towards a bourne that the divine mind has in 
vision. As the children of Israel saw the beckoning hand of Jehovaii, covered 
by day with a glove of cloud, hid by night behind the pillar of fire, calling 
them over the desert to the land of promise, so is the same finger trcicing the 
path -that leads our people on to a blessed station. 

We have not reached the appointed goal. The Almighty acts by laws 
that work through gradual evolution. With nations, as in nature, perf^ection 
is the outgrowth of patient cultivation. By a miraculous touch, Gud may 
multiply the loaves that sate the famished thousands. But his ordinary will 
■commands the hungering crowds to cast seed into the earth, to Avatch wearily 
by day and dream worriedly by night, while the rains from heaven fall upon 
the soil to draw forth the blade that the sun may kiss it and the air embrace it, 
repeating by slow stages the miracle of production which the Lord worked in 
an instant. So does the divine design carry itself with nations. God might 
create with a single word a perfect race and " purify to Himself an acceptable 
people." But the plan demands that the race perfect itself. By toilsome 
watching and laborious effort must man work out temporal, as well as eternal 
salvation. When, therefore, the under-soil was made ready: when the Creator 
knew that in the indej^endent spirit of our forefathers he possessed the ground- 
work for a new and glorious structure ; when the God-fearing, truth-loving, 
tolerant exiles had planted their own habitation, the hour struck for beginning 
the edifice which the Almighty had in contemplation. But lest the virtues ot 
our ancestors might degenerate into vices; lest the love of freedom might give 
occasion to lethal unrestraint ; lest independence might breed arrogance and 
proud disdain of others; lest faith in God might infuse an insidious spiritual 
pride, heaven did not permit those pilgrims to withdraw from intercourse with 
other men. They were not in all things the perfect type; they did not possess 
the fullness of development ; indeed, they were destined to supply only a share 
in upbuilding the national character that the hand of the infinite workmen was 
moulding. So Providence did not condemn the settlers to everlasting isola- 
tion. The winds wafted to their shores peoples from every clime and 'exiles 
from every country. In the newcomers, God offered a mirror in which our 
fathers might behold their own defects that before were unremarked, and the 
observation would aid them to be rid of imperfections. Through the new- 
comers, heaven emptied the treasure of the earth into our father's ])os-~ession. 
It was not the gold the visitors bore ; it was not the physical strength they 
offered ; but it was the unborn virtues of soul which were to be cast into the 
crucible where independence already lay, that a perfect national type migin be 
the resultant. Every race under heaven, every child of God has something 
•divine vvithin his being. The Lord directed the nations hither that from each 



TWO HUNDRED AND KIFTIEIH ANNIVERSARY. I E 

He might take the inner gift and adorn with their virtues the figures that 
already gloried in freedom. 

The labor is not ended, nor is the completion of the design at hand. We 
are still in a period of transition, but how far the work has progressed even 
this service gives witness. In a temple, the very mention of whose name 
might have caused the same founders to shudder, their descendants join with- 
the descendants of the newcomers in giving thanks to the God who has- 
brought about the betttr understanding. Tiie spirit of the foimders lives on, 
purified of many imperfections. God gave them the love of freedom, ht^cause 
He knew that after the twilight of the early morn the full brightness of light 
would clear the world of shadows. If the same fathers were permitted to take- 
visible part in the festivities to-day, their eyes would glow with glad delight,, 
as the material growth, the improved physical conditions, the advanced civili- 
zation, the greater social order, the closer civic relations, were pointed out to 
their wondtring gaze. 

But all such exultation should pale to naught before the knowledge that 
the spirit of freedom which they came to plant in the heart of a future race has 
blossomed into a beauteous flower that beggars their dreams of anticipation. 
They builded better than they knew. And to-day, as we stand on the cross- 
roads, thinking of the journey already past, we may pray that the God wha- 
has used our fathers for a divine purpose, shall still watch over the place they 
founded, guiding its destiny to the perfect accomplishment of His designs by 
a continuance of the progress which makes this anniversary a day of rtjoicing.. 



PUBLIC LITERARY EXERCISES. 

The j)ublic literary exercises were held in the Middlesex 0|)era Hoiise,^^. 
Wednesday afternoon at 2:30 o'clock. Hon. Owen Vincent Coffin, LL. D.,. 
a former Governor of this State, was the chairman. The Beeman & Hatch 
Orchestra of Hartford furnished the music. The committee and their wives 
were seated on the platform. Seats were reserved in the body of the house for 
the invited guests and the members of Wadsworth Chapter, D. A. R. The 
house was packed to overflowing, the stage and boxes were prettily deco- 
rated, the years 1650-1900 being conspicuous. 

The exercises opened with Kretschmer's Overture '' /\.thena " l)y the 
orche.stra. 

The Rev. Azel Washburn Hazen, D. I) , pastor of the First Chv.rch of 
Christ, offered prayer. 

The orchestra rendered an intermezzo, " Cupid's Pleading," a'ter which 
former Governor Coffin gave the following ^ 

ADDRESS OF WELCOME. 

UiK)n the o.casion of the celebration of the two hundretli anniversar\- of 
the settlement of this town fifty years ago, the chairman of the c')inniittee of 
arrangements. Dr. W^illiam B. Casey, delivered an address, in tlie course of 
which he ^aid : 

"Few or none of those now before me, it may safth' le said, will ever 
witness the return ol another Centennial anniversarv ; but a hundred year-. 




IJtl , J^ " 
iMiTfrTttP"^ ^ ^ 



TWO HUNDRED AND III IIEIH ANN'I\ ERSAR V. 



13: 



hence your children will celebrate it, doubtless, on a scale of magnificence of 
which we who are here now can form no concef tion. Instead of the hundreds 
who have ihis day assembled together '■'■'' -^^ there will be thousands ^^ '-^ 
gathered within some vast and spacious edifice, to listen to the history of their 
forefatheis' advent. From the South and West, aye, even from the very 
borders of the Pacific Ocean, it may be, will the iron horses sjieed them * * 
Then will our descendants turn with pride to the iirinled record of this day's 
proceedings and rejoice that this, our feeble attempt at the commenioraticn of 
Middletown's nati\itv, was not suffered utterly to lail." 

Although only half the "hundred >ears" have elapsed, much that he 
anticipated has a ready ccjme to pa.'-s. The iron horse has been speeding from 
ocean to ocean for thirty )ears ; the few hundred who met in the old church 
are succeeded by the multitude now gatheied in this spacious edifice to listen to- 
the sti-ry of the past. I he town, considered so pleasant to look upon then, 
has ir.creased largely in population and wonderfully in attracti\ene:rS ; business 
inteiests have grown to many times their dimensions then ; instead of railroad 
facilities in only one directrnn we ha\e them now in five; and our educational, 
charitable and religious instituticns and inteiests have expanded and improved 
to a remarkable extent. It is true that we have not accomjilished all we have 
hoped and attemp'ted to do in 1 ehalf of our good old town, but we must not 
cease to strive. Let us seek, through consideration of work done, and difficul- 
ties encountered and surmounted by those who preceded us, tilie encourage- 
ment and inspiration which will secure a greater measure of secular and religious 
progress and prosperity than has hitherto bten attained fo-r all the community 
within the borders of old original Mattabeseck. 

In the sijirit of this high purpose and obligation of duty, I heartily 
welcome to these exercises, in the name of this mother town, the eldest 
daughter, Chatham, whose filial lo\alty has extended throughout the entire 
period since she began housekeeping for herself one hundred and thirty-three 
years ago ; also to Cromwell, who started for herself forty-nine years ago, and 
has alwa}s honored her mother by the creditable history she has made ; and to 
Portland, daughter of Chatham and the only granddaughter of Middletown, 
who began to go alone in 1841, whose beauty and enterprise are a source of 
pride to all the family ; and finally, to Jair Middlefield, thirty-four years old, 
and having many of the best traits of all the others 

WelcoiriC all four to these exercises and to the magnificent pageant pr-e- 
pared for the morrow, in all of which you are to bear so creditable a part, and, 
looking to the future, welcome hereafter to a share of whatever of favor in 
material or spiritual interests God may vouchsafe. 

Now to you. Daughters of the American Revolution, to whom we all owe 
so much, not only for your thoughtful foresight in originating the movement 
for this celebration, but for your patient and patriotic efforts in discovering 
and preserving many fiicts and ol)jects of early historx'. of great present ancl 
permanent value — lo you I tender most cordial thanks and bid smcerest 
welcome. 

To you, invited guests, w ho have come from far and near, taking time and 
trouble to grace this occasion, I offer assurance of our ap]jreciaiion and grati- 
fication. If you find as great pleasure in being with us as we feel in having, 
you here, we shall be content. 



•14 TWO HUNDRED AND FlhTlETH ANNIVERSARY. 



HISTORICAL ADDRESS. 

Former Governor Coffin then introduced Prof. John Fiske, LL. D., of 
•Cambridge, Mass., as follows: 

We have with us to-day one who, through his earliest years, was a resident 
of this town ; of whose career we feel as great pride as in that of any other 
who has had his home in Middletown during the two hundred and fifty years 
of its existence ; one whose name and fame are familiar wherever in all the 
world good English is spoken or read. I have the honor and the pleasure of 
presenting to you, as the orator of the day, Professor John Fiske of Harvard 
University. 

Professor Fiske said : 

We are met here, my friends, to commemorate the beginnings and to 
recount some of the features of the town which we love, and which is or has 
been the home of so many of us. 

The history of Middletown is not that of one of the world's great centers 
of commerce or government, of literature or of art ; nevertheless it has its 
points of attraction, not only for those who dwell within the precincts of the 
town, but for all who feel interested in the development of civilization in our 
western hemisphere. The mere length of time during which the town has 
existed may serve to stamp for us the folly of the assertion that " America has 
no history " — one of those platitudes that people go on repeating until they 
become deadened to its absurdity. Next year the English-speaking folk of our 
planet are to take part at Winchester, the ancient capital of the kingdom of 
Wessex, in a grand millenial celebration of the mighty hero, statesman and 
•author, who stands prominent among the founders of English nationality and 
English literature ; the history of Middletown carries \is back over one-fourth 
of the interval that has elapsed since the death of Alfred the Great. It is a 
history as long as that of Rome from the beginning of the Punic wars to the 
reign of Augustus, and twice as long as that of Athens when she was doing the 
things that have made her for all time the light of the world. These are great 
names, perhaps, to bring into the same paragraph with that of our modest 
little town. But the period of development with which we are concerned is as 
important as any that is known in history. In the time of Charles I., when 
■our story begins, there were about 5,000,000 people in the world si)eaking the 
language of Shakespeare ; at the time of our first national census there were 
about 12,000,000, one-third of them in the United States; to-day there are 
more than 120,000,000, three-fifths of them in the United States; and there 
are children now going to school who will live to see this vast number trebled. 
The task of organizing society politically, so that such immense communities 
might grow up peacefully, preserving their liberties and affording ample oppor- 
tunities for the varied exercise of the human faculties, is a task which baffled 
the splendid talents of ancient Greece, and in which the success of the Romans 
was but partial and short-lived. We believe that the men who use the mingled 
.speech of Alfred and William the Norman have solved the great political prob- 
lem better than others have solved it. If we except the provinces of the 
Netherlands, the Swiss cantons and such tiny city-states as TVIonaco and San 
Marino, which retain their ancient institutions, there is not a nation on earth 
■making any pretence to freedom and civilization, which has not a constitution 
in great measure copied, within the present century, either from England or 
from the United States. Thus, whether willingly or not, does the civilized 
world confess the primacy of the English race in matters political. 



1 wo HUNL>KLD AM) Kill HI II ANMNKkSAkV. I5 

But as between our British cousins and ourselves, it is quite generally con- 
ceded that the credit for having successfully extended the principles of free 
government over vast stretches of territory belongs in a special degree to the 
American people. 'The experiment of federalism is not a new one. The 
Greeks aj;plied to it their supple and inventive genius with many interesting 
results. But they failed, because the only kind of popular government they 
knew was the town meetings, and of course you cannot bring together forty or 
fiity town meetings from different points of the com[ass to some common 
center to carry on the work of government by discussion. But our forefathers 
under King Alfred a thousand \ears ago were familiar with a device which it 
had never entered into the mind of Greek or Roman to conceive; they sent 
from each township a couple of esteemed men to be its representatives in the 
county court. Here was an institution that admitted of indefinite expansion. 
That old English county court is now seen to have been the jjarent of all 
modern popular legislatures. 

Now the Puritan settlers of New England naturally bi ought across the 
ocean the political habits and devices to which they and their fathers had been 
inured. They migrated for the most part in congregations, led by their pastors 
and deacons, bringing with them their notions of law and government and 
their customs of managing their local affairs in a primary assembly which was 
always in reality a town-meeting, even though it might be called by such names 
as vestry or court-leet. Such men with such antecedents, coming two 
hundred and sixty-five years ago into the Connecticut valley, were confronted 
with circumstances which soon made some form of representative lederal 
government a necessity. 

About eight miles north of Middletown, as the crow flies, there stands an 
old house of entertainment known as Shipman's Tavern, in bygone days a 
lavorite resort of merry sleighing parties and famous for its fragrant mugs of 
steaming flip It is now a lonely place ; but if you go behind it into the orchard 
and toil up a hillside among the gnarled fantastic apple trees, a grade so steep 
that it almost invites one to all-fours, you suddenly come upon a scene so rare 
that when beheld for the twentieth time it excites surprise. 1 have travelled in 
many countries, but have seen few sites more entrancing. The land falls 
abruptly away in a perpendicular precipice, while far below the beautit'ul river 
flows placidly through long stretches of smiling meadows, such as Virgil and 
Dante might have chosen for their Elysian fields, 'burning toward the north 
you see, gleaming like a star upon the horizon, the gilded dome of the Capitol 
at Hartford, and you are at once reminded that this is sacred ground. It was 
in this happy valley that a state was for the first time brought into existence 
through the instrumentality of a written constitution ; and here it was that 
germs of federalism were sown which afterward played a leading part in the 
development of our nation. Into the details of this subject we have not time 
to go at length, but a few words will indicate the importance of the events in 
which the founders of Connecticut and of Middletown were concerned 

We are so accustomed to general statements about our Puritan forefathers 
and their aims in crossing the ocean, that we are liable to forget what a great 
diversity of opinion there was among them, not so much on questions of 
doctrine as on questions of organization and of government. The two 
■extremes were to be seen in the New Haven Colony, where church and state 
were absolutely identified, and in Rhode Island, where they were completely 
separated. The first step in founding a church in Massachusetts was not taken 
V ithout putting half a dozen malcontents on board ship and packing them off 
' • England. The leaders of the great exodus were inclined to carry things 
ith a high hand. Worthy William Blackstone, whom they found cosily settled 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY. 1 7 

in the place now known as East Boston, was fain to retreat before them ; he 
had come three thousand miles, he said, to get away from my lords the 
Bishops, and now he had no mind to stay and submit to the humors of my 
lords the brethren ! Afterward, as the dissentients became more numerous, 
they scattered about and founded little commonwealths each for himself. Thus 
did New Hampshire begin its life with John Wheelwright, the Providence 
Plantation with Roger Williams, Rhode Island with Anne Hutchinson and her 
friends. Thus it was with those families in Dorchester and Watertown and the 
new settlement soon to be called Cambridge, who did not look with entire 
approval upon the proceedings of the magistrates in Boston. In 1631 the 
governor and council laid a tax upon the colony to pay for building a palisade, 
and the men of Watertown refused to pay their share because they were not 
represented in the body that laid the tax. This protest led to the revival of 
the ancient county court as a house of representatives for Massachusetts. Win- 
throp and Cotton and Dudley readily yielded the point because they fully 
understood its importance, but they were unable to make such concessions as 
would satisfy the malcontents. Their notions were aristocratic ; they believed 
that the few ought to make laws for the many. Moreover, they wished to make 
a commonwealth like that of the children of Israel under the Judges, and into 
it nothing must enter that was not sanctified ; so they restricted the privileges 
of voting and of holding public office to members of the Congregational 
churches qualified to take part in the communion service. 

At this juncture there arrived from England two notable men, the Rev. 
Thomas Hooker and the Rev. Samuel Stone, both graduates of Emmanuel 
College, Cambridge, and with them came many followers and friends. They 
were settled as pastor and teacher of the congregation at the New Town Cam- 
bridge, and at once became known as leaders of the opposition to the policy of 
the rulers of Massachusetts. With them were associated the layman John Haynes 
and the ministers John Warham of Dorchester and George Phillips of Water- 
town, ancestor of Wendell Phillips. 

For our present purpose it is enough to say that within three years from the 
arrival of Hooker and Stone, the three congregations of Dorchester, Cambridge 
and Watertown had migrated in a body to the farther or western bank of New 
England's chief river, the Connecticut, or "long tidal stream," as it was 
called in the Algonquin language. Here the new Dorchester presently took 
the name of Windsor, while its neighbor to the southward called itself Hartford 
after Mr. Stone's English birthplace, which is pronounced in the same way, 
though spelled with an e. As for the new Watertown, it was rebaptized 
Wethersfield, after the birthplace of one of its principal men, John Talcott, 
whose name in the colonial records, where orthography wanders at its own 
sweet will, usually appears as "Tailcoat." The wholesale character of this 
western migration may be judged from the fact that of the families living in 
Cambridge on New Year's Day, 1635, not more than eleven were there on the 
Christmas of 1636 ; the rest were all in Hartford. 

Along with this exodus there went another from Roxbury, led by William 
Pynchon, whose book on the Atonement was afterward publicly burned in the 
market-place at Boston. This migration paused on the eastern bank of the 
river at Springfield, where our story may leave it, as it took no part in the 
founding of a new commonwealth. 

This sudden and decisive westward movement was a very notable affair. If 
the growth of New England had been like that of Virginia or of Pennsylvania, 
the frontier would have crept gradually westward from the shores of Massachu- 
setts Bay, always opposing a solid front to the savage perils of the wilderness, 
and there would have been one large State with its seat of government at 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY. I9 

Boston. But the differences in political ideals and the desire of escaping from 
the rule of my lords the Brethren led to this premature dispersal in all direc- 
tions, of which the exodus to the Connecticut valley was the most considerable 
instance. 

The new towns, Windsor, Hartford and Wethersfield, were indisputably 
outside of the jurisdiction of Massachusetts in so far as grants from the crown 
could go. For two years a supervision was exercised over the Connecticut 
valley by persons acting under a commission from Boston. Then in January, 
1639, a memorable thing was done. The men of the three -river towns held a 
con\ention at Hartford and drew up a written constitution which created the 
State of Connecticut. This was the first instance known to history in which a 
commonwealth was created in such a way. Much eloquence has been expended 
over the compact drawn up and signed by the Pilgrims in the cabin ot the 
Mayflower, and that is certainly an admirable document ; but it is not a con- 
stitution ; it does not lay down the lines upon which a government is to be 
constructed. It is simply a promise to be good and to obey the laws. On the 
other hand, the " Fundamental Orders of Connecticut " summon into exist- 
ence a state government which is, with strict limitations, ]jaramount over the 
local governments of the three towns, its creators. This is not the place for 
inquiring into the origin of written constitutions. Their precursors in a certain 
sense were the charters of medieval towns, and such documents as the Great 
Charter of 12 15, by which the English sovereign was bound to respect sundry 
rights and liberties of his people. Our colonial charters were in a sense consti- 
tutions, and laws that infringed them could be set aside by the courts. By 
rare good fortune, aided by the consummate tact of the younger Winthrop, 
Connecticut obtained in 1662 such a charter, which confirmed her in the pos- 
session of her liberties. But these charters were always, in form at least, a 
grant of privileges from an overlord to a vassal, something given or bartered by 
a superior to an inferior. With the constitution which created Connecticut it 
was quite otherwise. You may read its eleven articles from beginning to end 
and not learn from it that there was ever such a country as England or such a 
personage as the British sovereign. It is purely a contract in accordance with 
which we the people of these three river towns propose to conduct our public 
affairs. Here is the form of government which commends itself to our judg- 
ment, and we hereby agree to obey it while we reserve the right to amend it. 
Unlike the Declaration of Independence, this document contains no theoretical 
phrases about liberty and equality, and it is all the more impressive for their 
absence. It does not deem it necessary to insist upon political freedom and 
upon equality before the law, but it takes them for granted and proceeds at 
once to business. Surely this was the true birth of American democracy, and 
the Connecticut valley was its birthplace ! 

If we were further to pursue this rich and fruitful theme, we might point to 
the decisive part played by the State of Connecticut a hundred and fifty years 
later, in the great discussion out of which our Federal Constitution emerged 
into life. Connecticut had her governor and council elected by a majority 
vote in a suffrage that was nearly universal, while, on the other hand, in her 
lower house the towns enjoyed an equality of representation. During all that 
period of five generations her public men, indeed all her people, were familiar 
with the combination of the two principles of equal representation and the rep- 
resentation of popular majorities. It therefore happened that at the critical 
moment of the immortal convention at Philadelphia, in 1787, when the big 
States, led by Virginia, were at sword's points with the little States, led by 
New Jersey, and it seemed impossible to agree upon any form of federal 
government, at that fateful moment, when nothing kept the convention from 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY. 21 

breaking up in despair but the fear that anarchy would surely follow, at that 
moment Connecticut came forward with her compromise, which presently 
healed the strife and gave us our Federal Constitution. Equal representation 
in one house of Congress, combined with poi)ular representation in the other ; 
such was the compromise which reconciled the jarring interests and won over 
all the smaller states to the belief that they could eater into a more perfect 
union without jeopardizing their welfare. The part then played by Connecti- 
cut was that of savior of the .\merican nation, and she was enabled to \Aay it 
through the circumstances which attended her first beginnings as a common- 
wealth. 

In the present survev our attention has been for ipiiie awhile confined to 
the north of Rocky Hill It is now time for us to turn southward and glance 
for a moment even as far as the shores of Long Island Sound, in order that we 
mav get a picture of the surroundings among which Middletown came into 
existence. 

In their bold westward e.\odus to tlie Connecticut River, the English 
settlers courted danger, and one of its imuiediate consequences was an Indian 
war The blow which our forefathers struck was surely Cromwellian in its 
effectiveness. To use the frontiersman's cynical phrase, it made many "good 
Indians." By annihilating the strongest tribe in New England, it secured 
peace for forty years, and it laid open the coast for vvhjie settlers all the way 
from Point Judith to the East River. Previously the English had no settle- 
ment there except the blockhouse at Say brook, erected as a warning and 
defense against the Dutch. But now the next wave of migration from England, 
led by men for whom the ideas of Winthrop and Cotton were not sufficiently 
aristocratic and theoretic, li.stened to the enthusiastic descriptions of the men 
-who had hunted Pecjuois, and thus were led to pursue their way by sea to that 
alluring coast. In the founding of New Haven, Milford, Branford, Guilford, 
Stamford, and Southold, over across the Sound, we need only note that at first 
these were little self-governing republics, like the cities of ancient Greece, and 
that their union into the republic of New Haven was perhaps even more con- 
spicuously an act of federation than the act by which the three river towns 
had lately created the republic of Connecticut. 

A spirit of federalism was then, indeed, in the air ; and we can see how 
the germs of it were everywhere latent in the incompatible views and purposes 
of different groups of Puritans. Rather than live alongside of- their neighbors 
and cultivate the arts of persuasion, they moved away and set up for themselves. 
It was not until a generation later that the Quakers thrust themselves in where 
they were not wanted, and through a course of martyrdom won for the New 
World its first glorious victory in behalf of free speech. The earlier method 
was to keep at arms' length. There was room enough in the wilderness, and 
no love was lost between the neighboring communities. The New Haven 
people restricted the suffrage to church members, and vituperated their Con- 
necticut neighbors for not doing likewise. It was customary for them to speak 
•of the " profane " and " Christiess " government of Connecticut. So in our 
own time we sometimes meet with people who — forgetful of the injunction, 
" Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's" — fancy that a Christian 
nation ought to introdtice the name of God into its written constitution. 

But while the wilderness was spacious enough to accommodate these 
<fiverse commonwealths, its dark and unknown recesses abounded in dangers. 
With the Dutchmen at the west, the Frenchmen at the north, and the Indians 
everywhere, circumspection was necessary, prompt and harmonious action was 
imperatively called for. Thus the scattering entailed the necessity of federa- 
tion, and the result was the noble New England Confederacy, into which the 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY. 23 

four colonies of Connecticut, New Haven, Massachusetts, and Plymouth 
entered in 3643. This act of sovereignty was undertaken without any consul- 
tation with the British government or any reference to it. I'he confederacy 
received a serious blow in 1662, when Charles II. annexed New Haven withotit 
its consent to Connecticut. But it had a most useful career still before it, for 
without the aid of a single British regiment or a single gold-piece from the 
Stuart treasury, it carried New England through the frightful ordeal of King 
Philip's War, and came to an honored end when it was forcibly dispta'ced by 
the arbitrary rule of Andros. It would be difficult to overstate the importance 
of this NeAv England federation as a preparatory training for the greater worth 
of federation a century later. 

Thus we are beginning to get some correct appreciation of the political 
and social atmosphere in which Middletown came into existence. It was in 
the very central home and nursing place of the ideas and institutions which to- 
day constitute the chief greatness of America and make the very name United 
States so deei)]y significant, so redolent of hopeful prophecy, like the fresh 
breath of the summer morning. Let us not forget that what is most vital, most 
organic, most prolific, in our national life, the easy and natural combination of 
imperial vastness with unhampered local self-government, had its beginnings 
more intimately associated with the banks of our beautiful river than with any 
other locality. 

The Puritan exodus from England was something unprecedented for 
volume, and in those days when families of a dozen children were common, 
a swarming from the parent hive was frequent. It might seem as if a move- 
ment down-stream from Wethersfield would naturally have come first in 
order. But the banks of the river would seem to have been shrouded in 
woodland vegetation as dense as that of the Congo, or some stretches of the 
lower Mississippi in our days. The settle;rs were apt to be attracted by 
smooth, open spaces, such as the Indians called Pequoig ; such a place was 
Wethersfield itself. But the little Connecticut republic first made a long 
reach and laid its hand upon some desirable places on the Sound. In the 
eventful year 1639 Roger Ludlow, of Windsor, led a swarm to Fairfield, the 
settlement of which was soon followed by that of Stratford at the mouth of 
the Housatonic River. This forward movement separated Stamford from its 
sister towns of the New Haven republic. Then, in 1644, Connecticut bought 
Saybrook from the representatives of the grantees. Lord Saye and his friends, 
and in the next year a colony planted at the mouth of Pequot River was 
afterward called New London, and the name of the river was changed to 
Thames. Apparently Connecticut had an eye to the main chance, or, in 
modern parlance, to the keys of empire; at all events, she had no notion of 
being debarred from access to salt water, andwhile she seized the mouths of 
the three great rivers, she claimed the inheritance of the Pequots, including 
all the lands where that domineering tribe had ever exacted tribute. 

In 1645, the same year that New Lor don was founded, came the settle- 
ment of Farmington, and in 1646 the attention of the General Court was 
directed to the country above the Wondunk, or great bend, where the river 
forces its way eastward through a narrow rift in the Chatham hills. The name 
of the region west of the river was Mattabehsett, or Mattabeseck, for, coming 
from Algonquin mouths, dentals were not readily distinguishable from gutterals. 
It is the same name as Mattapoisett, on the coast of Buzzard's Bay, and it 
means a carrying-place or portage, where the red men would walk from one 
stream head to the next, carrying their canoes upon their shoulders It may 
also mean the end of the carrying-place, the spot where the canoe is re- 
launched, and in its application to Middletown there is some uncertainty. 



24 TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY. 

arising perhaps from embarrassment of riches. We have surely streams and 
portages in plenty. What with the Sebethe and its southwestern tributary that 
flows past Ebenezer Jackson's romantic lane ; what with the Pameacha and the 
Sanseer uniting in Sumner's Creek, Middletown is fairly encompassed with 
running waters, which doubtless made a braver show in the seventeenth 
century than in these days of comparative treelessness and drought. Just 
when the first settlement was made in Mattabessett we are not too precisely in- 
formed, but it was probably during the )ear 1650, to which an ancient and 
unvarying tradition has always assigned it. In September, 1651, we find an 
order of the General Court that Mattabesett sliall be a town, and that its 
people shall choose for themselves a constable. In 1652, we find the town 
represented in the General Court, and in 1653 the aboriginal name of Matta- 
besett gives place to Middletown. The Rev. Divid Dudley Field, in his com- 
memorative address of fifty years ago, suggested that this name was "probably 
taken from some town in England, for which the settlers had a particular re- 
gard." Careful research, however, has failed to disclose the existence of the 
name Middletown in England at any period known to history, so that we must 
probably fall back upon the more prosaic explanation that the name was 
roughly descriptive of the place as about halfway between the upper settle- 
ments and the Saybrook fort. It was one of the earliest nistances in America 
of the adoption of a new and descriptive name, instead of one taken from the 
Bible or commemorative of some loved spot in the mother country. Let us be 
thankful that it preserves the old dignified simplicity. A later and more gran- 
diloquent fashion would have outraged our feelings with Cenlerville ! 

Mattabesett had its denizens before the peaked hats of the Puritans were 
seen approaching the mouth of the Sebethe. They were Algonquins of the 
kind that were to be found anywhere east of Henry Hudson's river, and in 
many other parts of the continent, even to the Rocky Mountams. The apostle 
Eliot preached to Mohegans at Hartford in the same language which he ad- 
dressed to the Massachusetts tribe at Natick, and his translation of the Bible is 
perfectly intelligible to-day to the Ojibwas on Lake Superior. Between the 
Algonquins of New England and such neighbors as the Mohawks there was of 
course an ancient and deep-seated difference of blood, speech and tradition ; 
but one Algonquin was so much like another that we need not speculate too 
curiously about the best name to be given to the tawny warriors, who were 
gathered in the grimy wigwams that clustered upon Indian Hill. Very com- 
monly the name of a clan was applied to its principal war-chief. Just as Rob 
Roy's proudest title was The Macgregor, so the head of the Sequeens in the 
Connecticut valley was The Sequeen. Our ancient friend Sowheag, upon 
Indian Hill, was of that ilk, and it is correct enough to call him a Mohegan. 

It is worth mentioning that the territory of Mattabessett was bought of 
Sowheag's Indians and duly paid for. Sometimes historians tell us that it was 
only Dutchmen, and not Englishmen, who bought the red men's land, instead 
of stealing it. Such statements have been made in New York, but if we pass 
on to Philadelphia we hear that it was only Quakers who were thus scrupulous ; 
and when we arrive in Baltimore we learn that it was only Roman Catholics. 
In point of fact, it was the invariable custom of European settlers on this 
Atlantic coast to purchase the lands on which they settled, and the transaction 
was usually recorded in a deed, to which the Sagamores affixed their marks. 
Nor was the affair really such a mockery as it may at first thought seem to us. 
The red man got what he sorely coveted — steel hatchets and grindstones, glass 
beads and rum, perhaps muskets and ammunition, while he w^s apt to reserve 
sundry rights of catching game and fish. A struggle was inevitable, when the 
white man's agriculture encroached upon and exhausted the Indian's hunting- 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY. 25 

iground ; but otlier circumstances usually brought it on long before that point 
was reached. The age of iron superseded the stone age in America by the 
same law of progress, that from time immemorial has been bearing humanity 
•onward from brutal savagery to higher and more perfect life. lu the course of 
it, our forefathers certainly ousted and dispossessed the red men, but they did 
not do it in a spirit of robbery. 

The original extent of territory purchased from Sowheag cannot be ac- 
curately stated, but ten years later we find it stretching five miles or more 
southward from the Scbethe River, and northward as far as Rocky Hill, while 
from the west bank of the Connecticut it extended inland from five to ten 
miles, and from the east bank more than six miles, comprising the present 
areas of Portland and Chatham. 

The original center of settlement was the space in front of the present 
Catholic Church, between Spring Street and the old graveyard. There, in 
1652, was built the first meeting-house, a rude wooden structure, twenty feet 
square, and only ten feet in height, which lantil i6Sb served the p.urposes alike 
of public worship and of civil administration, as in mos.t New England towns 
of the seventeenth century. A second meeting-house was then built on the 
east side of Main Street, about opposite the site of Liberty Street. About that 
neighborhood were congregated most of the Lower Houses, as they were 
called. For a couple of miles north of the Sebethe, and separated from this 
settlement by stretches of marshy meadow, was the village which within the 
memory of men now living was still called the Upper Houses. In those heroic 
ages of theology, when John Cotton used at bed-time to " sweeten his mouth 
with a morsel of Calvin," when on freezing Sundays the breaths of the con- 
gregation were visible, while at the end of the second hour the minister 
reached his climax with seventeenthly, in those days it was apparently deemed 
no hardship for the good people of the Upper Houses to trudge through the 
mire of early springtime, or under the fierce sun of August, to attend the 
services at the central village. Indulgence in street cars had not come in to 
weaken their fibre. But bv 1703 there were people enough in the Upper 
Houses to have a meeting-house of their own, and we find them marked off 
into a separate parish, the first stage in process of fission, which ended in 1851, 
in the incorporation of Cromwell. 

I do not intend, however, to become prolix in details of the changes that 
have occurred in the map of Middletown during more than two centuries. 
]\Iany such facts are-xecounted in the address, lately mentioned, of Dr. Field, 
my predecessor in this pleasant function fifty years ago. It is a scholarly and 
faithful sketch of the history ot our town 'and full of interest to readers who 
care for that history. Instead of an accumulation of facts, I prefer in this 
brief hour to generalize upon a few salient points. As regards the territorial 
development of the town, it may be noted that while it long ago became 
restricted to the western bank of the river, its most conspicuous movement has 
lately been in a southerly direction. After the cutting down at the north, 
there came a considerable development just below the great bend, in which the 
most prominent feature is the Asylum upon its lofty hill. Nothing else, per- 
haps, has so far altered the looks of things to the traveller approaching by the 
river. But little more than a century ago, say at the time of the Declaration 
of Independence, the center of the town was still north of Washington Street. 
There stood the town-house in the middle of Main Street, while down at^the 
southern end, just east of the, space since known as Union Park, stood , the 
Episcopal Church, built in 1750. With the growth of the State there had 
been a creation of counties in i668,and until 17S6 Middletown was still a 
part of Hartford County. A reminiscence of bygone days was kept up in the 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY. 2^- 

alternate sittings of the Legislature at Hartford and New Haven, but Middle- 
town had grown to be larger than either of those places. With a population 
of between five thousand and six thousand it was the largest town in Connec- 
ticut, and ranked among the most important in the United States at a time 
when only Philadelphia, New York and Boston could count more than fifteen 
thousand. John Adams, in 1771, was deeply impressed with the town from 
the moment when he first caught sight of it from Prospect Hill, on the Hart- 
ford road, but his admiration reached a climax when he went to the Old North 
meeting-house and listened to the choir. About the same time, a well-known 
churchman and Tory, that sad dog, Dr. Peters, the inventor of the fabled New 
Haven Blue Laws, said of Middletown : " Here is an elegant church, with steeple, 
bell, clock, and organ; and a large meeting without a steeple. The people are 
polite and not much troubled with that fanatic zeal which pervades the rest 
of the colony." This is testimony to. an urbanity of manner that goes with 
some knowledge of the world. The people of the thirteen American common-^ 
wealths were then all more or less rustic or provincial, but there was a kind 
of experience which had a notable effect in widening men's minds, softening 
prejudices and cultivating urbanity, and that was the kind of experience that 
was gained by foreign trade. During the eighteenth century, Middletown 
profited largely by such experience. In 1776, among fifty names of residents- 
on Main Street, seventeen were in one way or another connected with the sea,, 
either as merchants, ship-owners, shippers, or rope-makers. The town was 
then a port of some consequence ; more shipping was owned here than any- 
where else in the State, and vessels were built of marked excellence. After 
1700, the cheerful music of adze and hammer was always to be heard in the 
ship-yards These circumstances brought wealth and the refinement that 
comes with the broadening of experience. The proximity of Yale College, too,, 
was an important source of culture. Richard Alsop, born in 1761, grandson 
of a merchant and ship-owner, who sat in the Continental Congress, was a 
wit, linguist, pamphletter and poet, who cannot be omitted from any study of 
American literature. There was a volume of business large enough to employ 
able lawyers, and thoroughness of training sufficient to make great ones. 
Such was Titus Hosmer, brilliant father of a brilliant son, whom men used 
to speak ot as the peer of Oliver Ellsworth, of Windsor, and William Samuel 
Johnson, of Stratford. In the society graced by the presence of such men 
there was also material comfort and elegance. The change in this respect 
from the seventeenth to the eighteenth century was strongly marked. On 
opposite sides of the old village green until some thirty years ago, one might 
have seen the contrast well exemplified. While near the corner of Main and 
Spring Streets a group of small houses preserved the picturesque reminiscence 
of one of the styles which our forefathers brought irom their English lanes and 
byways, just opposite was the spacious estate of Captain Hackstaff", with its- 
majestic avenue of button-ball trees. The complete destruction and disappear- 
ance of that noble landmark, to give place to a railway junction, is a typical 
instance of the kind of transformation wrought upon the face of things by the 
Titanic and forceful age in which we are living. The river bank, once so 
proud in its beauty, like the elder sister in the fairy tale, has become the 
grimmy Cinderella, pressed into the service of the gnomes and elves oF 
modern industry. The shriek of the iron horse is daily echoed by the White- 
Rocks, and the view that used to range across green pastures to the quiet blue 
water, is now obitructed by a tall embankment and a coal wharf. 

The mention of the railroad reminds us of the fact that in the middle ot 
the nineteenth century our town had ceased to rank as foremost in the State 
for population. The two capital cities, perhaps one or two others, hadi 



^38 TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY. 

already passed it in numbers and in commercial activity, and when its growth 
was compared with that of American cities in general it had begun to seem 
rather small and insignificant. The Rev. Dr. Field in this connection pointed 
to the wholesale westward emigration of New Englanders. Why are there not 
more of us here, he asks; is it not because so many have found new homes in 
the central parts of New York, and about the shores of the Great Lakes? 
Truly, Connecticut has been a sturdy colonizer. In the Revolutionary period, 
the valley of the Susquehanna was her goal, a little later the bluffs overlooking 
Lake Erie, and finally the Northwest in general, until she has come in a 
•certain sense to realize the charter of Charles II., which gave her free sweep 
as far as the Pacific. The celebrated Alexis de Tocqueville, when he visited 
this country, during the presidency of Andrew Jackson, observed that Connec- 
ticut sent two senators of her own to Washington, but upon inquiry he dis- 
covered that nine members of the Senate first saw the light in this State, and a 
dozen more were born of Connecticut parents. I will not vouch for the 
figures, but I give you the point of his remark — now this westward migration, 
first greatly stimulated by the invention of steamboats, acquired an immense 
volume after the introduction of railways. Vast tracts of country, abounding 
in industrial resources, became tributary to sundry centers of rail and water 
traffi'-, such as Buffalo and Cleveland, Milwaukee and Chicago, and such 
•centers offered business inducments which drew population westward as with a 
-mighty magnet. After a time, however, this sort of depletion began to work 
its own cure; for there can be no doubt that Eastern cities are far more 
]jr()sperous through their myriad dealings with a civilized west than they could 
•ever have become had the era of the Indian and the bison been prolonged. 

In this rapid and extensive series of industrial changes, those towns and 
villages naturally suffered most that were left aside by the new routes of travel. 
The mountain towns were the first to feel the change, for the railroad shuns 
■steep places. A century ago, the largest town in central Massachusetts was 
Petersham, with two thou'^and inhabitants, and it was proposed to make it the 
■shire town of Worcester County. To-day the city of Worcester numbers over 
one hundred thousand souls, Petersham scarcely six hundred. With Middletown 
there was no topographical reason why the railway between New Haven and 
(Hartford should not pass through it ; but undue reliance upon the river seems 
to have encouraged a too conservative policy on the part of its citizens, while 
Meriden, which had no such resource, was nerved to the utmost efforts. The 
result soon showed that under the new dispensation nothing could make up 
for the loss of the railroad. In the commercial race, Middletown fell behind, 
•and perhaps it was only the branch line to Berlin that saved her from the fate 
of the New England hill towns. The weight of the blow was increased by some 
•of the circumstances which attended the Civil War. I have already spoken of 
the maritime enterprise of Middletown at an earlier period. Her shipping 
interests suffered severely in the War of 1812, and some of the energy thus 
repressed sought a vent for itself in manufactures. Of the manufacturing that 
sprung up so generally in New England after 18 12, Middletown had her fair 
share ; and in this her abundance of water power was eminently favorable. 
But her shipping likewise revived, and its prosperity lasted until the Civil 
War. In the decade preceding that mighty convulsion there was a distinctly 
nautical flavor about the town. To this, no doubt, the fame of McDonough 
in some ways contributed, for it was linked with personal associations that 
■drew naval officers here from other parts of the country. Then there was a 
thriving trade with the West Indies and China, and visitors to what seemed an 
inland town were surprised at the name of Custom House over a brownstone 
.building on Main Street. But with the Civil War, began a decline in the 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY. 29. 

American merchant marine, from which it has not yet recovered. The cities 
fronting upon East River are seven times as large as in 1850, yet when the 
steamboat lands you at Peck Slip, no such bewildering forest of masts now 
greets your eyes as in that earlier time. When this decline first became ap- 
parent, people had an easy explanation at hand. It was due, they said, to the 
depredations of the Alabama and other Confederate cruisers. Yet it continued 
to go on long after those mischevious craft had been sent to the bottom and 
the bill of damages paid. In truth, you could no more destroy a nation's 
oceanic commerce with cruisers than you can destroy a lawn by mowing it 
with a scythe. If after cutting down the grass it does not spring up with fresh 
luxuriance, it is because some baleful influence has attacked the roots. It is 
much to be feared that the drought under which our merchant marine has 
withered has been due to unwise navigation laws, to national legislation, which 
has failed to profit by the results of human experience in other times and 
countries. However that may be, it is clear that a great change was wrought 
in the business aspects of Middletown. With the decline in her shipping 
interests she became more and more dependent upon the prosperity of her 
manufacturers, and while these bravely fljurished every increase in their 
activity made more manifest the need for better railway facilities than we en- 
joyed. To supply this need, the project for building the Air Line Railroad 
was devised, and speedily became the theme of animated and sometimes acri- 
monious debate. Among the topics of discussion on which my youthful 
years were nourished, along with predestination and original sin and Webster's 
Seventh-of-March speech, a certain pre-eminence was assumed by the Air Line 
Railroad. I think I found it more abstruse and perplexing than any of the 
others. Its advocates were inclined to paint the future in rose-color, while 
besides the gloom depicted by its adversaries the blackest midnight would be 
cheerful. As usual in such cases, there were elements of truth on both sides. 
Great comfort was taken in the thought that the proposed road would shorten 
by twenty miles or so the transit between New York and Boston — a point of 
much importance, perhaps ultimately destined to be of paramount importance. 
What was under-estimated was the length of time that would be needed for 
carrying a thoroughly efficient double-track road through such a difficult 
stretch of country, as well as the resistence to be encountered from powerful 
interests already vested in older routes. For a long time the fortunes of the 
enteYprise were such as might seem to justify the frowns and jeers of the 
scorners. The money gave out and things came to a standstill for years, 
while long lines of embankment, mantled in verdure, reminded one of 
moraines from an ancient glazier, and about the freestone piers of a future 
bridge over the road to Staddle Hill, we boys used to play in an antiquarian 
mood such as we might have felt before the crumbling towers of Kenilworth. 
In later years, after the work was resumed and the road put in operation, it 
turned out that the burden of debt incurred was in danger of ruining many 
towns before the promised benefits could be felt. For Middletown it was a 
trying time ; taxation rose to unprecedented rates, thus frightening business 
away. Among the outward symptoms of the embarassment were ill-kept 
streets for a few years, an unwonted sight and out of keeping with the tradi- 
tional New England tidiness. Yet the ordeal was but temporary. There was 
too much health and vigor in the community to yield to the buffets of adverse 
fortune. The town is becoming as much of a railroad center as circumstances 
require, and the episode here narrated is over, leaving behind it an instructive 
lesson for the student of municipal and commercial history. 

Yet if Middletown has not kept pace in material development with some- 
of her neighboring cities, she has had her compensations. It has become 




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TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY. 3I 

•characteristic of us Yankees to brag of numbers and bigness. A real estate 
agent lately asked me if I did not wish to improve my property, and when I 
asked his meaning, it appeared that his idea of improvement was to cut away 
the trees in the garden and build a house there for some new neighbor to 
stare in at my windows. To make comfort, privacy, refined enjoyment, every- 
thing in short, subservient to getting an income from every available scrap of 
property, such is the aim in life which material civilization is too apt to beget. 
I remember that John Stuart Mill somewhere, in dealing with certain eco- 
nomic questions, suddenly pauses and asks if after all this earth is going to be 
a better or pleasanter place to live in after its forests have all been cleared and 
its rough places terraced, and there is but one deadly monotony of brick and 
mortar, one deafening jangle of hoofs upon stone pavements " from Green- 
land's icy mountains to India's coral strands." Tliere are other things worth 
considering in a community besides the number of individuals in it and the 
value of their taxable property. The city of Glasgow is three times as populous 
as Edinburgh and a thousand times noisier, but it is the smaller city that en- 
gages our interest and appeals to our higher sympathies. Of late years, in 
weighing the results of my own experience, after an acquaintance with nearly 
all parts of the United States, from Maine to California, and from Duluth to 
New Orleans, amounting in many places to familiar intimacy, and after more 
or less sojourning in the Old World, I feel enabled to appreciate more clearly 
than of old the qualities of the community in which it was my good fortune to 
be reared. We understand things only by contrast, and in early life we are 
apt to mistake our immediate environment for the universal order of nature. 
What is more beautiful than the view from one leafy hillside to another in the 
purple distance across some intervening lowland, especially if the valley be 
light with the gleam of water sparkling in the sunshine ? Such pleasure daily 
greets the eye in Middletown, and no child can help drinking it in, but to 
realize the power of it one must go to some town that is set in a flat, mono- 
tonous landscape, and then after some lapse of time come back and note the 
enhanced effect of the familiar scene when clothed in the novelty of contrast. 
Looking back, then, upon Middletown in the light both of history and of 
personal experience, it seems to me that in an age and country where material 
civilization has been achieving its grandest triumphs, but not without some 
attendant drawbacks, in an age and country where the chief danger has been 
that the higher interests of life should be sacrificed to material ends. Middle- 
town has avoided this danger. From the reefs of mere vulgarizing dollar- 
worship her prow has been steered clear. In the social life of the town some 
of the old-time charm, something of the courtliness and quiet refinement that 
marked the days of the spinning-wheels and knee buckles has always remained 
and is still to be found. Something, very much indeed, has been due to 
institutions of learning, the university and the divinity school ; much also to 
the preservation of old traditions and mental habits through sundry strong per- 
sonalities, — the saving remnant of which the prophet speaks. In the very 
aspect of these broad quiet streets, with their arching trees, their dignified and 
hospitable, sometimes quaint, homesteads, we see the sweet domesticity of the 
old New England unimpaired. Nowhere is true worth of character more justly 
valued or cordially welcomed, with small regard to mere conventional 
standards; and this I believe to be one of the surest marks of high civilization. 
It was surely in an auspicious day, fruitful in good results, that our forefathers 
•came down the river and made for themselves a home in Mattabeseck. 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIE1H ANNIVERSARY. 



3\ 



The orchestra then rendered a grand selecticm from "Lohengrin," by 
Wagner, and former Cjovernor Coffin then said : 

It affoids me much pleasure to introduce as the jm er of" the (Kcasion, our 
well-known and esttenud fellow-citizen, Judge Daniel Jo:ei/h Donahoe. 

Judge Donahoe then read the following poem : 

BUILDING UNTO GOD. 



Nunc auteni nianent, fides, spes, charitas : 
tria haec. Major autem hoium est chaii- 
tas." 



FAITH. 

Tossed in frail bark iipcm the boisterous sea, 
\^ ith prayerful lip.s the ship-wrecked mariner 
Peers, pale and trembling, thiough the gloom 

that shrouds 
The roaring deep. Then sudden from the 

skies 
The clouds begin to break, and winds, that 

late 
Howled o'er the leaping seas, now stroke the 

waves. 
And sprinkle dewy spray against the skies. 
Then shines, through scurrying lack, the 

northern star. 
Sure guide to shelteiing haven, home, and 

friends, 
A ray of light that thrills the soul with joy. 

So, steadfast o'er the sea of life faith shines, 

'Mid changing lights that move like wind- 
borne clouds ; 

So cheers the traveler, tossed on waves of 
doubt. 

And lifts his soul toscng and heavenly praise ; 

So did it cheer and guide that simple band. 

The builders of our land, who wrought for 
God, 

Faced the grim shape of death to do His will. 

And stablished in the wilds His covenant. 

As Abraham of old at God's command 
Led Isaac to the mountain, bowed in will 
And strong and stern, though sorrowing; so 

they came 
Through the grim wilderness to build for God. 
Plain men were they, but of heioic mould ; 
Stem-browed, harsh-featured, silent, thought- 
worn, grave, 
Of moral fiber gnar.'ed as the oak. 
But great of heart and strong in living faith. 
The very seed of Abraham bowed in will. 

And thus they brake the soil, and clave the 

wood , 
And raised their hemes, dear pledges unto 

faith. 
The frowning wilderness, gaunt famine's stare. 
Or shaft of savage archer, stayed them not. 
Their toils were constant and their prayers 

were strong. 



God walked with them, and spake with them, 

and filled 
Their souls with light ; their voices, night and 

morn 
Assaulted Heaven with pleadings ; and their 

hearts 
Went out to God in canticles of faith : 

^Ve bow to Thee, O God, we bow to Thee ; 
Thy loot is on the land and on the sea ; 

A living God, T hou reign'st foreveimore ; 
Thou art Irom everlasting; Thy crmmand 
Is law ; sun, moon and stars are in Thy hand. 

Glory and power are Thine forevermore. 

We are Thy sheep, O c;od,Thy sheep are we. 
Thy judgments are our mercy ; Thou shall be 

Our ruler and our judge forevermore ; 
Thy power shall break the heathen ; Thy right 

hand 
Shall scatter princes ; men in every land 

Shall know and piraise Thy name forever- 
more. 



II. 

HOPE. 

I stand among the shadows on the slope. 
And search the east, above whose wooded hills 
1 he day-star shines, a premise of the morn. 
Silent the city lies ; no sound is heard, 
.Save mid the trees, uncertain twitterings 
Of birds that wait the breaking of the dawn. 

Thus o'er the shadowy hills of life hope shines, 
A star resplendent from the glow of God, 
A promise of the day that is to be. 
Its luster wakes the toiler unto strife 
For human glory, fills his soul with light ; 
And fires his tcngue to scngs of prophecy. 

So through the night of years that held our 

land 
In cheerless gloom and bondage, comes the 

light 
Of hope's enduring star ; and in its ray 
The planter's barren wand blossoms with 

flowers. 
The cloven hollow in the wilderness 
Is grown a garden ; out of every vale 
Rises a sound of gladness ; all the hills 
Are bright with homes, where hope and jileas- 

ure dwell. 
And children's voices fill the land with joy. 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY. 



35 



For lo I the seed of freedom, sown in faith, 
Amid the toil and danger of the night, 
Nursed by God's blessings and the light of hope, 
Has sprung, a nation. Young, and strong and 
"brave. 

She lifts her voice in fearless majesty. 
Filling the world with music as she sings 
Her deathless anthem unto liberty. 

Hark, how the bells ring while the song re- 
sounds ! 
Hark, how the people shout man's destiny I 
Fearless forever he shall walk the earth. 
King among kings ; and labor shall lift up 
Her head in joy ; for God's free gifts to man 
Are sanctified and never shall be sold. 

So let the bells ring evermore ; for lo : 
A brighter dawn is breaking on the world ; 
Even now the birds are singing in the trees. 
And night, with all its shadows, thes amain. 
The toiler's brow is now no longer stern ; 
His voice no longer silent ; for his heart 
Throbs with the strong and quickening pulse 

of hope. 
A glory, new from God. is on his way ; 
And like the song of thrushes in the dawn. 
His dreams are heavenly sounds, that wake 

his tongue, 
In holy music, to a hymn of hope : 

We call to Thee, O God, we call to Thee : 
Tender and sweet Thy voice o'er land and sea ; 

Earth is thine own, O Lord, forevermore ; 
We hear the sounding music of Thy feet 
Walking the paths of earth ; O. passing sweet 

The promise of Thy love forevermore. 

■We see Thy light, O Lord, we see thy light ; 
The brightness of Thy coming cheers the 

night ; 

Thou art, O God, our trust forevermore ; 
The shadows vanish from the morning slope ; 
A roseate dawn illumes the world with hope ; 

Angels and men shall praise Thee evermore. 



The tinkling cymbal and the sounding brass 
Are silent ; hushed the horrid brawl of war ; 
The serpent's brood are swallowed up in death ; 
And pride is stricken by the bolt of God. 
And with the light comes wisdom ; while the 

earth 
Bathes in baptismal innocence, her sons. 
Children of God, and brothers of the Christ, 
Striving in love and breathing words of peace. 

Is this an idle dream that shapes the hour 
When one mild brotherhood shall rule the 

earth ? 
Is the -hope vain that love shall be our law, 
Made perfect by divinity in man ? 
Nay, vanity is not of God ; His light 
Is truth ; His golden sun of love 
Is no false glare to lead our steps astray. 

But we must slay the brute ; must purge the 

soul 
Of soiling lust and hate ; must lift our hearts 
To God, and greet each brother with the smile 
That shows the kinship of divinity. 
For this the fathers planted and their seed 
Blossoms unto a hope that ripens fair 
To golden fruitage. We must reap in love, 
And soul-pure as the angels, raise our song: — 

Father, Thy little ones o'er land and sea, 
Lift up the mellow song of love to Thee 

In joy that shall not die forevermore. 
Thy mercy is our law, Thy love our light ; 
We walk in Thy sweet visions day and night. 

And chant thy love with angels evermore. 

Sorrow and sin and evil are of earth ; 

But Thou hast brought, dear Christ, to heavenly 

birth 

Love's innocence that lives forevermore ; 
And sorrow, sin and evil, touched by love. 
Rise glorifying God ; and like a dove 

Peace broods o'er all the world forevermore. 



LOVE. 
Are they but tinkling cymbals, the sweet 

sounds 
That cheered us through the gloom ? but 

sounding brass. 
The mellow music prophesying day ? 
Nay, have no fear ! behold the flaming 

heavens 
The rosy clouds, the flood of warming light. 
The glory of the sunburst on the hills 1 

So love breaks o'er the world, and night is 

dead ; 
The clouds of woe are scattering, and a voice 
Of wondrous sweetness rises from the sod. 
The toiler feels upon his soul the breath 
Of love, and fearless, lifts his face to God. 
He stands among the angels robed in light, 
And joins the choir of God in holy joy. 



HAPPINESS. 

All night upon the sea the fishermen 

Have toiled in vain ; but now while morning 

wakes. 
And they upon the shore mend their torn nets, 
Grieving, the green waves breaking at their 

feet. 
Comes, like the rising sun the gentle Christ, 
And sprinkling golden words amid the throng, 
Turning to Simon, speaks : " Let down thy 

nets-" 
Then Simon draws; and lo, the wondrous 

draught ! 
And seeing he cries out, — a cry that still 
Rings down the ages, — ' Brothers, speed your 

help! 
Bring every soul into the ship of faith." 
So have we toiled all night ; so watched and 

prayed, 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY. 



37 



And oft our strenuous labor seemed but vain, 
Till now, at sunrise, on the beach we stand. 
While break the sounding waters at our feet. 
But night is dead ; the sun is on the sea ; 
And strong in faith, we draw the nets, and lo I 
From the wide waters comes a wondrous 

draught, 
That strains but shall not break. And with 

new joy 
O'er the rude ocean rides the gallant ship ; 
The waves part at her prow, and favoring 

gales 
Fill her white canvas, whistling in the shrouds. 

So is the bark, that 'mid the stress of storms. 
And o'er the deeps of strange and changeful 

seas, 
Set out on venturous voyage, in God's name, 
Become the pride and glory of the waves. 
The sea is blue ; the skies are pure and fair, 
God's hand is at the helm ; the sails are filled 
With prosperous blessings ; and the nations 

gaze 
Upon her beauty, loud with shouts of cheer. 

Her freight is human happiness ; she bears 
To every port sweet messages of hope ; 
And fills the heavens with her songs of joy. 



But faith sufticeth not, nor hope, nor both 
Without love's holy light ; and so she flies, 
Above her ample sails, a threefold flag. 
Blue faith, white hope and the red glow of love. 

Thus ever sail, a harbinger of peace, 
Fair .Ship, and brmg glad tidings of great joy 
To all the havens, till the light of God 
Shall shine upon a world new-born in love ; 
Till the sweet hymn of faith and hope and love 
Thy mariners are choiring on the sea. 
Shall fill the world with music and the slraia 
Shall find an answering voice in every soul: 

Unto Thy name, O God, we bow the knee ; 
At morn and noon and night we cry to Thee; 

Thou art our strength and stay forevermore. 
With saving hope Thou cheerest every heart; 
Let not the beauty of Thy light depart ; 

Hut be our hope, our trust forevermore. 

We are Thy children. Father : let us be 
As little children playing at Thy knee. 

But strong in bonds of love forevermore. 
Let not Thy faith depart from us, O Lord : 
Let hope be kindled by Thy flaming word, 

And be Thy love our law forevermore. 



Loraine's intermezzo, " Salome," was then rendered by the orchestra, 
and Hon. O. V. Coffin introduced Mr. Richard Lawrence de Zeng, who read 
a paper entitled " The Settlers of Mattabeseck, 1650-1660," written by Mr. 
Frank Farnsworth Starr. The paper gave a briet sketch of the men who 
organized this town. 

The orchestra then rendered the "Venetian Live Song" and "Gondo- 
liers," from "Suite Romantique " by Nevin. A. hymn written by Prof. 
Richard Burton, Ph. D., of the University of Minnesota, was sung by the 
audience, led by the Wesleyan University Glee Club. The hymn was: 

7><«f— NUREMBURG. 



Where the red man roved of yore 

By a stately water-lane 
Lo, was sown a seed that bore 

Hundred fold of goodly grain ; 
Which the hardy pioneers 
Harvested with blood and tears. 

Homely times were those, and grim. 

By the green-rimmed river-side ; 
Oft with battle sm )ke were dim. 

Where the staunch forefalht-rs died ; 
But, with sounds of prayer and praise, 
Came white peace and sweeter days. 

Ships were built of sturdy frame, 

And the marls with trad; were rife ; 

Schools uprose in wisdom's name, 
Churches hymned the higher life ; 

So the holdfast English race 

Set God's seal upon the place. 



We have reaped what they have sown. 

Honored, down the streets we tread, 
Carven clear in changeless stone. 

Be the memories of the dead ; 
For through them our town doth bide 
Beautiful her stream beside. 

Not to ihem alone, to Thee, 
G 'd of older yca's and ours, 

Be the land, for Thou canst see 
In the root the pledge of flowers ; 

Though man's ways he passing strange, 
. Yet Thy counsels do not change. 

City of our love and life. 

River town of spreading trees, 

Peacelul, after early strife. 
Prospered by the centuries, 

Thnu forever shah endure 
If thy faith be firm and pure. 



Hon. O. V. Coffin said : 

The Rev. Father Sheridan was to have been ])resent to pronounce the 
benediction, but I deeply regret that, by the judgment and under the orders of 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY. 



39 



his physician, he is unable to be with us this afternoon. The benediction will 
now be pronounced by Rev. S. D. McConnell, D. D., of Brooklyn, N. Y., 
formerly the well-beloved rector of Holy Trinity Church of this ciiy. 



PART II. 



THE EVENING EXERCISES. 

The evening exercises at the Middlesex Opera House began at 7:30 
o'clock. The house was crowded. Former Governor O. V. Coffin presided. 
The exercises opened with the rendering of Schubert's " March Militaire," 
Op. 51, No. I, by the orchestra. 

Hon. O. V. Coffin then introduced the Eev. Frederick William Greene, 
as follows ; 

I have the pleasure of introducing as the first speaker of this evening, 
Rev. Frederick William Greene, the esteemed pastor of the South Congrega- 
tional Church, whose topic is 

"THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF MIDDLETOWN.^^ 

The subject of this paper is to be the religious life of Middletown, and the 
writer is aware thai all the religious life of any community cannot be identified 
with its church life. 

That as in the case of the individual the religion of a community is its 
relation to God, and not to any church or even churches That this religious 
life overspreads the church life as the broad expanse of our Great River spreads 
out bevond the narrow line of its channel. Yet as the safest and surest way of 
exploring the river is by following the channel, so the writer has found that 
almost his only possible way of tracing the religious life of Middletown, has 
been to follow the history of the conscious religious thought and activity of 
her people as expressed in their church life. 

Behind the pulpit of the Center Church in New Haven is an impressive 
memorial window. It is a memory of the first religious service held by the 
founders of the New Haven colony. The artist has pictured a group of 
worshi;iers gathered under the shade of some great elm about their young 
leader, John Davenport. On the outside of the group stand the men armed. 
^^'ithin, some of them seated upon the grass, are the women, Puritan mothers 
with their children about them. All are gazing intently into the shining face 
of the preacher, who, with words of sublime faith, lifts the thought of this 
little comi:)any of strangers in a strange land up to God, " who is our dwelling 
place in all generations " 

The religious life of Middletown had its beginning in a similar scene. At 
the two hundreth anniversary the missive elm under which our fathers first 
gathered was still standing at the entrance of the old graveyard. 

Now we have only a rude sketch of the same. One of their first votes in 
town meeting was to build them a house of worship. The colonial records of 
Connecticut about that time specially enjoin upon all towns to make provision 
of men at arms to attend upon divine service for the protection of the com- 
pany. To provide for this necessity Middletown surrounded its first church 



40 TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY. 

edifice, which was but twenty feet stjiure and ten feet high, with pallisades. It 
was completed in 1652, and situated not far from the present site of the Paro- 
chial school of St. John's Roman Catholic church. From that time legal 
boundaries were described as so far in this or that direction from the meeting 
house. As we learn from Dr. Benjamin Trumbull, the first few years of 
Middletown's history were years of religious controversy in the neighboring 
settlements of Hartford and Wethersfield. The first great question of the New 
England church — that of the Half-way Covenant — was then for the first time 
being agitated. And this probably accounts for the fact, that the fathers 
appear to have been divided in their mind as to the permanent settlement 
among them of Mr. Samuel Stow, who for the first seven years led their 
worship as a candidate for the pastoral office. But the General Court finally 
ordered " Rcsjjecting Mr. Stow of INIiddletown, there appearing to be such 
unsuitableness in their spirits, that Middletown shall have free liberty to 
provide for themselves another able, orthodox and yjious minister." This they 
proceeded to do in the person of Mr. Nathaniel Collins, who, like Mr. Stow, 
was a graduate of Harvard College. But that the people of the settlement were 
determined to obey the Scripture injunction to " lay hands suddenly on no 
man," is amply proven by the nearly ten years of candidature through which 
the fervent and " godlie" Mr. Collins pas.sed before he was finally ordained as 
pastor in October of 1668. It was probably because of the same unsettled con- 
dition of ecclesiastical opinion concerning the limitations of church member- 
ship, that the formal organization of a church was deferred till the same time. 
The First Church of Christ in Middletown was organized in that little 
stockaded meeting-house built sixteen years before. The names upon the 
council include those of Mr. Hooker of Farmington, Mr. Mather of North- 
ampton, and Mr. Whiting of Hartford. We need not be surprised then that 
the creed and covenant which they approved are to-day interesting documents. 
Probably prepared by their pastor, Mr. Collins, with the help of ihe church, 
they express, as does no similar document of that date that has come under the 
writer's eye, the great essentials of ihe Christian faith, with a smiplici'y and 
depth that still make them, after two hundred and fifty years of ripening 
thought and broadening theological opinion, a fit expression he believes for 
the faith of a majority of the Protestant Christians of Middletown to-day. The 
impression made by their perusal is not of the great theological acumen of the 
writers, but of their deep sense of the reality of the faith which they are ex- 
pressing, and the broad foundation it lays for noble, earnest, whole-souled 
Christian living. And as for the covenant, I could not give you a better idea 
of the spiritual life of our first settlers than by reading it to you. 

THE co'v^iGnsr.A-nsrT, 

with ye names of such as on their own account publicly and solemnly owned it 
at first. 

" We doe in ye presence of God, the Holy Angells, and tliis assembly 
take, acknowledge and avouch the one and onely true God, God the Father, 
Son and Holy Ghost to be our God, giving up ourselves and our children to 
him to be his people. Ingaging that we will walk with this God, and one with 
another according to the rules of ye Gospel, attending His Holy will made 
known to us 111 His word. That we will bee subject to ye government of 
Christ, and observe all those lawes which he hath established in His kingdom, 
soe far as hitherto he hath or hereafter shall be pleased to reveale ye same unto 
us. And particularly that we will maintaine and diligently attend, all his 
ordinances ; obeying them that are over us in the Lord ; that we will watch 
over one another, and faithfully deale with and submitt to one another in case 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY. 4I 

of offense according as ower Lord hath commanded. All this we promise law- 
fully to perform through the grace and strength of Christ. 

" Nathaniel Collins, Thomas Allen, Thomas Wetmer, Senior, John Hall, 
Junior, Samuell Stockin, Senior, William Harris, John Savage, Senior, Robert 
Warner, Andrew Warner, Senior, George Hubbard, Senior." 

The records of the church are in fine condition, being usually kept by the 
pastor. And even atnid the dull monotony of the registrations of those who 
owned the covenant, and those who received the *' initiatory seal " of the 
covenant in baptism, there breathes the spirit of the consecrated man, who 
found in every entry a cause of intense joy and humble thanksgiving. But one 
entry during the pastorate of Mr. Collins deserves special mention in any 
account of the religious life of the city. It was that of Christmas Day in 167 1, 
*' Being," as the record says, "The Lord's Day." "The church being in some 
way sensible of ye great weight of duty incumbent on themselves in relation 
unto the children of this church, together with the as yet little appearance of 
the saving efficacy of ye ministry of ye word upon them, as great matter of 
mourning did, by a joint unanimous concent agree upon the 2Sth day of the 
present month, to be kept by us as a day of solemn fasting and prayers. In a 
special manner on that day both more solemnly, explicitly and distinctly, than 
as yet they have done, to own the children of the church, that are come in any 
measure into any competency of understanding. To inform those of and 
acquaint them with that confession of faith and order, with ye auful covenant 
bond and tye under ye engagement whereof, be ye infinitely wise, holy and 
gracious providence of God in ye way of his own ordinance, they now stand." 

I wish I had time to tell the story in t^he quaint and fervent words of Mr. 
Collins. But the substance of it is, that on the day appointed, after a loving 
word of exhortation and prayer in their homes, the parents and guardians of 
baptized children came, with their older charges, to the meeting-house. And 
there, in the presence of the children, and of God, that beautiful creed, and ye 
auful covenent and tye, were read and explained, the parents spoke of its 
worth in their own lives, and then upon their knees besought God's spirit to 
bring home the obligation to their sons and daughters. As a result, all there 
gathered gave the customary silent assent to the covenant at that time, and 
were thereafter numbered among God's people. The day was indeed memor- 
able in the hearts of that generation, for when twenty-five years later they, too, 
became anxious for their own children, they solemnly took the same vote, and 
at another day of fasting and prayer ninety-five of their sons and daughters 
were led to accept their personal obligations to God. 

Seasons such as these were repeated at the close of the seventeenth and at 
the beginning of the eighteenth century ; but soon after there fell upon the 
religious life of Middletown, as of all New England, that spirit of indifference 
and impiety which was so marked just before the Great Awakening. This is 
noted in the church annals by innumerable cases of discipline ; sins of all 
sorts seem to have been dealt with by the church, but especially sins against 
chastity, and Middletown apparently offered no exception to Trumbull's state- 
ment, that " throughout the colonies looseness of morals, drinking and the 
neglect of a family and social religion were the rule rather than the exception." 

It was the time of the Witchcraft madness, which brought such disgrace to 
the religious history of Massachusetts. It is interesting, therefore, to note 
that the only hint of any agitation in this community is contained in the entry 
in the records for 1709, when one " John Lane made confession of his sin in 
tampering with ye devil, in its several agrivations both as a breach of the III. 
Commandment, and of his covenant sealed in baptism." 




THE BRODKKICK CARRIACE COMPANY. 



TWO HUNDRED AND KIKTIEIH ANNIVERSARY. 4^ 

But if spirituality was at a low ebb ecclesiastical controversy ran high. The 
church had lost its first pastor, Mr. Collins, in 1684. Cotton Mather says of" 
him in his Magnalia, " The church in Middletown upon Connecticut river was 
the golden candlestick from whence this excellent person illuminated more 
than the whole colony." And to this prose notice he added a poetical 
effusion which ended as follows : 

" Pity, the church of Middletown bespeaks 

Set in the midst of swoons and sobs and shrieks." 

He was succeeded by Rev. Noahdiah Russell, who led the community in 
sympathy with the higher educational interests of the colony, as is testified by 
his appointment as one of the first trustees of Yale College. Indeed, all the 
pastors were marked for their interest in education, even Mr. Samuel Stow, the 
rejected candidate, leaving the city a bequest for its schools. Mr. Russell was 
a prominent figure in the ecclesiastical controversies of his day, being one of 
the framers of the Saybrook platform, and seems to have held his people in 
sympathy with the stricter form of church government, embodied in that 
document, though of this last we cannot be entirely sure, for the adage " like 
priest like people," did not always hold true in New England. ^■■'^^i'^ 

In the meantime the town had built them a new meeting-house (1689), 
which was thirty-two feet square and fifteen feet between joists. The difference 
of opinion as to its site havmg been peaceably settled by placing it at the foot 
of what is now Liberty Street. 

But if the people showed their peaceful disposition in the question of the 
site of this meeting-house, they showed their great reverence for the Divine 
guidance when they again had the task in hand. For when their third sanc- 
tuary was built, there was so much danger of friction between those living on 
what they called the west and north and east sides of the square bounded by 
Main and High Streets, that it was decided to leave the question of site to the- 
Lord's decision by means of the lot. And the lot having fallen upon the south 
corner where no one desired ir, they bowed to the Lord's will and built at the 
head of Church Street. Mr. Noahdiah Russell died in December of 171 3, and 
was followed by his son, the Rev. William Russell, a graduate of Yale. 
During his pastorate occurred another eventful day in the spiritual history of 
Middletown. 

The great religious awakening which began in Northampton with the 
preaching of Edwards and was felt throughout New England, was inaugurated 
in Middletown by the visit of Mr. Whitfield It is probable that Mr. Russell 
was in sympathy with the revival, for we find the following entry in Mr. 
Whitfield's journal for October, 1740. "Accordingly at night I rode to 
Middletown, ten miles from Wethersfield, and was entertained at the house of 
Mr. Russell, the minister of the place, and I think an Israelite indeed, and 
one who I hear has long been mourning over the deadness of professors. Oh, 
that all ministers were like-minded." That the people were least interested in 
the man and his message, we may judge from the following description of an 
eye-witness who rode from Kensington to Middletown that morning to hear 
his sermon. "And when we came within about half a mile or a mile of the 
road which comes down from Hartford to Wether.-fitld and stepping to 
Middletown on high land, I saw before me a cloud of fogge arising. I first 
thought It came from the great river, but as I came nearer the road, I first 
heard a great noise something like a low rumbling thunder, and presently 
found it was the noise of horses' feet coming down the road, and the cloud was- 
a cloud of dust made by the horsts' feet. It arose some rods in air over the 
tops of hills and trees, and when I came wiihin about twenty rods of the roadi 



^4 I'WO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY. 

I could see men and horses slipping along in the road like shadows, and as I 
drew nearer it seemed like a steady stream of horses and their riders, scarcely a 
horse more than a length behind one another, all of a lather and foam with 
sweat, their breath rolling out of their nostrils every jump. Every horse 
-seemed to go with all his might to carry his rider to hear the news from 
heaven for the saving of souls. It made me tremble to see the sight, how the 
world was in a struggle. I found a vacance between two horses to slip in 
mine. We went down in the stream, but heard no man speak for three miles, 
but every one pressing forward in great haste, and when we got to Middletown 
old meeting-house, there was great multitude (said to be three or four thousand 
people assembled). We dismounted and shook off the dust, and the ministers 
were then coming to the meeting house. I turned and looked toward the 
great river, and saw the ferry-boats running swift backwards and forwards, 
bringing over loads of people. All along the twelve miles I saw no man at 
work in the fields, but all seemed to be gone." Dr. Trumbull thus describes 
the moral result of the movement throughout the colony: "There seemed to 
be a general conviction that all the ways of man were before the eyes of the 
Lord. It was the opinion of men of discernment and sound judgment who 
had the best opportunity of knowing the feeling and general sta e of the 
■people at that period, that bags of gold and silver, and other precious things, 
might with safety be left in the streets and no one would have converted them 
to his own uses." 

But one of the results of this greater activity of religious thought on the 
part of the people, with which we may be sure the good Mr. Russell did not 
■sympathize, was a greater freedom in criticizing what was called the " standing 
order" both of the church and the ministry. And this movement was fol- 
lowed throughout New England by divisions in the doctrinal thinking of the 
people and finally in the establishment of other denominations. We need not 
be surprised then to find that in Middletown the stream of religious life, which 
up to this time had been almost universally expressed through relation with the 
Congregational church, was now divided. 

Indeed we may trace to that revival the larger freedom in religious think- 
ing that has brought it about, that the religious life of our city now finds its 
• expression through fourteen churches representing seven different denomina- 
tions. 

This was of course bemoaned sadly by those who were most closely in 
sympathy with the original church. And those men and women whose inde- 
pendent thinking and conscientious convictions led them to come out from the 
establishment, and support their own ecclesiastical order, not only had to pay 
double parish rates, but were also treated to a good deal of ecclesiastical 
-snobbery. 

We cannot but feel sympathy with them to-day, although had we been 
^faithful members of Mr. Russell's church we would very likely have felt with 
him that this was an unnecessary dividing of the forces of righteousness. But 
remembering the covenant which the Fathers took upon themselves to be 
obedient not only to all known commands of God, but to those which might 
afterward be revealed, and accepting for ourselves two articles of that creed 
which they first formulated, the one, " That a living Spirit would always guide 
a living church," and the other, " The union of all true believers in the mys- 
tical body of Christ," some of us still have confidence to believe that, in spite 
of the present variety in the thought and shade of religious opinion, the reli- 
.gious life of Middletown is still flowing forward in one single stream, under 
fthe guidance of the one Father and the inspiration of the Common Lord. 



TWO HUXDRED AND FIFTIEIH ANNMVEKSARY. 45 

Such has alwajs been the faith of the writer, and it has been largely 
strengthened by such researches as he has been able to make into the history 
of the various branches of the Church of Christ in Middletown, as each has- 
put him into possession of the facts from their own standpoint. 

Three great causes have brought about the divisions in the churches 
through which the religious life of Middletown seeks its expression to-day. 

I. The first has been (the) divisions in theological opinion, unavoidable- 
in the development of personal religion undtr the Protestant ideal of individual 
liberty. Under thestrt-ss of moral and intellt-ctual convictions the Episcopa- 
lians, the Separates, the Methodists, the Baptists, and finally the Universalists, 
have broken away from the moiht-r church, each with the avowed purpose of 
forming a congregation of worshipers more after the New Testament model. 

II. The second cause of the present division has been the removal into 
town of large bodies of men and women religi()u>ly trained under very differ- 
ent ecclesiastical conditions. This has brought to us the Roman Catholic 
communion, the Swedish and German Lutherans. 

III. While in the third place the growth of the city and the natural 
desire for more convenient facilities for worship, has caused the establishment 
of two more branches of several of the denominations, and of about six dif- 
ferent chapels. 

THE EPISCOPALIANS. 

The Episcopalian and the South Congregational have sometimes disputed 
the title of being the second church of Christ established in the city. The 
honor, however, I think, belongs with the Episcopalians. For as early as 
1740 we have record of sixteen families who gave adherence to the Church of 
England. This little company had jirobably been increased, if not indeed 
gathered, through the influence of Rev. James Wetmore, a grandson of Mr. 
Samuel Stow, the first candidate for the ministry. 

In 1750 a parish was organized, and after two refusals, the town granted 
them a spot of ground on the east side of what is now the South Park, on 
which they might build their first church edifice. It was fifty by thirty-six. 
feet in dimensions and was completed in 1755 In this church, on the 2d of 
August, 17S5, the first American bishop. Right Rev. Samuel Seabury, first met 
his clergy after his return from his ordination, and here he held , his first ordi- 
nation of deacons. Since then the hold of this church upon the community 
has continued to strengthen, under the ministry of able rectors and the episco- 
pal care of so noble a bishop as our late lamented townsman, the Right Rev. 
John Williams. Two other church edifices have been erected, one of which, 
through the generosity of Mr. Russell, is now used as our public library. 
Three chapels have been started to minister to the immediate needs of outly- 
ing districts. While, through the self-sacrificing efforts of some of the profes- 
sors and students of Berkeley Divinity School, another flourishing parish has 
been established in South farms, which succeeded to the name of " Christ 
Church" when the city parish assumed that of " The Holy Trinity." St. 
Luke's Home, for widows and old ladies, is a monument to the truly religious 
life of the Episcopal congregation in this city, while Berkeley Divinity School, 
with its company of devoted instructors, is yearly sending forth young and. 
consecrated Christian servants into the vineyard of the Lord. 

Certainly many outside Middletown have reason to bless the time when 
God put it into the hearts of some of His Christian children in this city to- 
wish to serve Him after the manner of their English forbears. 




COMMITTEE ON SCOPE. 



HON. O. V, COFFIN. 

JUDGE 1). J. DONOHOE. KEV. A. W. HAZEN, D. D. 

R. L. DE ZENG. FRANK B. WEEKS. 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFIIETH ANNIVERSARY. 47 

THE SEPARATES. 

What is now the South Congregational Church was not originally an off- 
shoot from the First. But after the Great Awakening, many who had been 
converted at that time hesitated to associate themselves with the church which 
still practiced the half-way covenant, and accepted the Saybrook platform with 
its semi-Presbyterian tendencies. A little company of such dissenters from up 
and down the river associated themselves together at VVethersfield in 1747. 
They were a part of the Separate or Strict Congregatioualist movement which 
was more or less general throughout the eastern part of the State. They re- 
jected all relations between church and state, and emphasized much the emo- 
tional side of the conveisation. 

The First Church of Wethersfield made it so uncomfortable for them, 
that, with their pastor, Ebenezer Frothingham, they soon established them- 
selves here in Middletown. Probably choosing the place because the First 
Church was supposed to be more in sympathy with the revival. They found at 
least a type of Christian tolerance, for they had apparently an uneventful exist- 
ence here, during the pastorate of their elder, Mr. Frothingham ; first worshiping 
in his house, and then building themselves a spacious church, which still stands 
on South Main Street. Toward the close of the century a great company of 
their members again separated themselves and formed the First Baptist 
Church. That church finally absorbed a greater portion of the separates, 
until, in 181 2, the few remaining members ceased to be Separates or Strict 
Congregationalists, and became the second Congregational Church of Middle- 
town. Under the able pastorates of Mr. Jinks, Mr. Tyler and Mr. Dudley 
the church was thoroughly established. 

It is now in fullest communion with the Congregational body and the 
first church, cherishing only such memory of separateness as may insure the 
development among its membership of personal relations with the Living God. 
During these years the church has built four church edifices, three of which are 
still standing. It has had seventeen pastors. It was the first to introduce the 
Sunday school and Y. P. S. C. E. into the religious life of Middletown. 

THE METHODISTS. 

The first Methodist sermon heard in Middletown was preached by Rev. 
Jesse Lee, December 7, 1739. Two years later a society was organized which 
was a part of a circuit until 1816. The first time Bishop Asbury visited town 
he preached in what he called the " cliurch of the standing order," but had to 
go a mile or so out of town for his lodging. Afterward he often occupied the 
Separate church and was entertained by their ex-pastor, Mr. Frothingham. 
Since 1816, when it became a station, its long list of pastors has contained 
many names well known in the Methodist conimunion — Heman Bangs. A. C. 
Eggleston, Charles K. True, G. L. Westgate, and John M. Reid, together 
with the names of Curry and Kelley, afterward connected with the denomina- 
tional publications. 

The church has erected three houses of worship, in 1804, 1828 and 1S85 
respectively. It has done mission work in the northern part of the city and in 
Westfield, and from the work at first supported by students in South Farms, 
where a chapel was built in 18S0, there has arisen the South Methodist Church 
of Middletown, which became a conference appointment in 1896. By far the 
richest contribution which Methodism has brought to the religious life of our 
city is witnessed to by the presence of the University, which from its founda- 
tion to the present time has immeasurably deepened not only the intellectual 
but the spiritual life of the city. 




CHAIRMEN OF SUB- COMMITTEES. 



HON. D. LUTHER BRIGGS. 

CHARLKS A. PHLTOX. ALBERT R. CRITTENDEN. 

CHARLES F. MERRILL. SETH H. BUTLER. 

WILBUR F. BURROWS. LYMAN D. MILL^ 

GEN. CHARLES P. GRAHAM, GRAND MARSHAL. 

EDWARD G. CAMP. HON. SAMUEL RUSSELL. 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY. 49 

The African Methodist Church has also ministered to the needs of the 
■members of the colored race in our community since 1828. They own a 
church and parsonage on Cross Street, and, with more or less help, have been 
able to support a pastor for nearly eighty years. 

The hope in the heart of that Methodist circuit rider who, in passing 
through Middletown in 1789, thought that perhaps there might once have been 
some religious life in these parts, and that possibly by the blessing of God and 
the Methodist order, there might be again, has been fulfilled abundantly, 
though not perhaps exactly as he imagined. 

THE BAPTISTS. 

The Baptist Church, as has already been said, was organized in 1795 fronr 
members of the Separate Church, because they honestly believed there was in 
Middletown no such local organization of baptized believers as the New Testa- 
ment describes They took God's word as their only guide for faith and 
practice in religion. They retained their separate principles also, and gradu- 
ally absorbed the greater portion of that church. This large draft of individu- 
alism probably explains the checked history of the church in its relations with 
its pastors, as well as the sturdy types of personal piety which have been 
therein developed. In its hundred years of existence it has had twenty-five 
pastors, and was once at least six years without a pastor, being held together 
in lis worship by the lofty faith and personal piety of a few deeply religious 
souls, and the vigorous use of the talents of its lay members. 

It has contributed to the history of the religious life of our city some of 
its most devoted examples. And I think it would be difiticut for any church 
to match either in health or f)iety the record of a Mrs. Barnes, who " tho' she 
labored all the week at the loom, was yet never too weary to go to church on 
the Sabbath," and from her seventieth to her ninety-second year was only 
absent from church for two half days, making a total of one whole day out of a 
possible 1,144, "while she was equally as consistent, thorough-going and 
systematic in other departments of Christian duty." Another instance of 
personal religious character is that of Thomas Pilgrim, who went from this 
church into the ministry of the VVord, and who, being among the foremost 
advisors and sympathizers with the early political leaders of Texas, has the 
reputation of having done for that State what Thomas Hooker did for Conneo- 
ticut. The church has built two houses of worship, in 1800 and 1842 re- 
spectively, 

THE UNIVERSALISTS. 

Perhaps the opposite extreme doctrinally of the religious life of the city is 
represented by the Universalist Church. Yet in their articles of organization, 
which were published in 1829 and addressed to " The believers in the doctrine 
of God's impartial and universal grace in Middletown and vicinity," we find a 
ringing echo of the same spirit of earnest religious conviction, by which each 
of the other denominations was brought into being. 

We find them covenanting thus: "Therefore, to promote mutual and 
Christian friendship and brotherly love, to inquire after truth and to diffuse 
knowledge of the 'good tidings of great joy which shall be to all people,' we, 
the subscribers, do hereby agree to unite ourselves into a social compact by the 
name of the First Universalist Church. And without binding ourselves to any 
human established creed or form, do agree to take the Scriptures of the Old 
and New Testament for our guide, and to look to our Heavenly Father for in- 
struction, protection and support." We are not surprised that the city found 
a place in its religious life for a society whose professed purpose has been to 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY. 5I 

emphasize " the height and depth, the length and breadth of the love of God, 
which passeth knowledge and understanding." For about nine years this 
society met in the Lancastrian school-house on William Street. And then 
their present church edifice was erected in 1839. Rev. L. S. Everett was the 
first pastor, and has been followed by fifteen others. The form of government 
of this church is Congregational, like that of the fathers. 

THE ROMAN CATHOLICS. 

We now come to the churches which have been founded to minister to the 
spiritual needs of those multitudes who are still seeking America as their "land 
of promise." First among these in order of founding and importance is St. 
John's Roman Catholic Church. At the time of the two hundreth anniver- 
sary, Dr. Field said " that for some years the oppressed and suffering Catholics 
of Ireland had been coming to this place, attracted by the opportunities of em- 
ployment afforded by the Portland quarries." They came in such numbers 
that as early as 1830 Mass was celebrated in private houses in Portland by a 
missionary from Hartford. In 1845, R^^- Julm Brady, of Hartford, purchased 
land of Charles R Alsop, where now St. John's Church stands, the price of 
land being a gift of Mrs. Richard Alsop, herself a Catholic. Another Rev. 
John Brady, a ne^jhew of the former, completed the church and became its 
first pastor. So rapidly did the congregation increase that within five years a 
much larger building was obliged to be erected, the old church being used as a 
school-house. Father Brady was succeeded by Rev. Lawrence T. P. Mangan, 
and he in turn by Rev. James Lynch. During his pastorate the tower of the 
church was completed, a handsome rectory built, and the convent building 
east of the rectory erected. 

On May 10, 1872, a community of seven Sisters of Mercy from Ennis, 
County Clare, Ireland, came to occupy the convent, taking charge at the same 
time of the Parochial School, and becoming the Mother house for five other 
branch houses of the sisters in different parts of the State. The present pastor, 
Rev. Bernard O'Reilly Sheridan, has during his pastorate built a handsome 
new school building and erected a chapel on the site of the old church. The 
parish is large and well cared for by the help of two resident assistants. Father 
McGiveney and Father Walsh. Certainly all must rejoice that our city 
possesses a branch of the Mother of all the churches, which can minister to the 
religious life of the great throng, who Sabbath by Sabbath take their way to 
the church, which, in its topographical location, stands nearest to the spot 
where our fathers first worshiped. 

LUTHERANS AND OTHERS. 

In 1887, the Swedish Congregationalists of the city began to associate 
themselves together for worship in their own tongue. They were encouraged 
by the fostering care of the First Church, in whose chapel they worshiped, 
till in 1893 they built them a sanctuary of their own upon North High Street. 

A branch of the Swedish Lutheran Church was established here through 
the efforts of Rev. K. A. Martin. In 1893 ^^ey also built themselves a church 
on North High Street, and now gather together a goodly congregation on the 
Sabbath. 

The German Lutherans were gathered in 1894 by the earnest ministry of 
Pastor Blecher, and worshiped for three years in the chapel of the South 
Congregational Church. In 1897, through their own efforts and the en- 
■couragement and generosity of friends in the other churches, they built a sub- 
stantial and commodious house of worship on South High Street. 

For eleven years the Salvation Army has been with us, calling its congre- 
gation together, as was the custom with our fathers, at the roll of the drum. 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY. 53 

They claim a total of seven hundred and fifty conversions in their meetings, 
and are a constant witness to the militant spirit in the church, which rejoices 
to show its colors every day in the week. 

There are several chapels and religious organizations in the outskirts of 
the town, established through the co-operation of the churches and supporting 
■more or less regularly a preaching service — one in Long Hill, in 1876, by 
help of the South, Methodist and Baptist churches, and one each in Johnson 
Lane and Maromas — established through the work of the State Sunday School 
Society. 

CHAPELS. 

There have been other branches of the Christian family established at 
times in our city. The Millerites once held regular services here, and there 
was at one time a branch of the United Presbyterian Church, of Scotland, 
cherished by a colony of faithful Scotch souls who dwelt among us. But as 
they came to know us better they cast in their lot with the other churches, and 
the proceeds from the sale of their chapel were turned into a fund for benevo- 
lent uses. Another fund administered with loving care by the ladies of the 
churches, is that of the Female Charitable Society, founded in 1809, whose 
special design is " To provide for the education of the poor and furnish cloth- 
ing for the destitute." 

And what has been the history of the mother church while her daughters 
have been growing so robust. In faithfulness to her pastors she has certainly 
surpassed them all. Ten pastors in two hundred and fifty years is a record 
seldom equalled or surpassed in any community. William Russell was suc- 
ceeded by Enoch Huntington, a learned and devoted minister, who led his 
people nobly in thought and action during the days when our national life was 
being established. 

In 1773, the First Church set off a colony in Westfield, which, as the 
Third Congregational Church of Middletown, has not only continued to bless 
its own community, but has also been influential in establishing the religious 
life of the neighboring city of Meriden. And yet in spite of the constant 
drawing off of its membership to the larger towns, the Third Church is to-day 
stronger in numbers than ever before. When Enoch Huntington died in 
office, a Mr. Daniel Huntington was called to take his place. He was the 
grandfather of the Rt. Rev. Huntington, Bishop of Central New York, whom 
we hoped to have had with us to-day. He was the first pastor to be dismissed 
to serve elsewhere in the earthly vineyard. He was followed by Drs. Good- 
rich and Crane, then by Dr. Crane's son, for a short pastorate, he in turn by 
Dr. Jeremiah Taylor, and finally by our beloved Dr. Hazen, the chaplain of 
the day. During these years the church has built two houses of worship, has 
established and supported a chapel in the Staddle Hill District. She has 
learned to love her grown-up daughters, and to lead them in a generous 
rivalry of good works. In the missionary revival of the nineteenth century, 
she, with her daughters, has taken a noble part. 

The evangelism of the century has been welcomed here under the preach- 
ing of Pentacost and Moody, and a branch of the Y. M. C. A., with its 
world-wide efforts to save the young men, has, we hope, found a permanent 
home in our city. While the Young People's movement of the last fifteen 
years has found a place in some form in the work of almost all of our churches, 
this later work I cannot more than mention in so short a paper. 

Beneath and around and within all this manifestation of religious life 
through the churches, there has been working the revelation of Divine life in 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY. 



55 



the human family, where more aptly than in any other school, we learn the 
great lesson of the Divine Fatherhood. 

These who can remember the olden times, say that while the number of 
the denominations is increasing rather than diminishing, the points of 
distinction between them are growing to be less and less barriers to fellow- 
ship, and the great essentials of Hope and Faith and Loving Service, which 
are destined to outlast all partial visions, are more and more coming to the 
front. And while there do not seem to be signs of a complete uniformity in 
our religious lives and experiences, there is a hope constantly growing brighter 
and more universal, of such a unity in variety as is characteristic of the Divine 
life in all its natural manifestations, and which therefore may be the only unity 
which can characterize true religion, which is itself but the Divine life shed 
abroad in the hearts of men. 

The orchestra then rendered " Czardas," from " Coppelia," by Delibe=;, 
after which Hon. O. V. Coffin introduced Prof. William North Rice, Ph. D.> 
LL. D. He said : 

Probably no resident of Middletown is better qualified to speak intelli- 
gently on the subject " Education in Middletown," than Prof. William North 
Rice, of Wesleyan University, who will now address you. 

"EDUCATION IN MIDDLETOWN." 

The first settlers of Middletown were of the same race and the same 
traditions as the settlers of New England in general. In Middletown, as else- 
where, the organization of the school and the church followed closely upon 
those labors of clearing the ground and building houses, which were absolutely 
necessary for subsistence. It was in the very year of the settlement of Middle- 
town that 'he laws of the colony of Connecticut were for the first time 
codified. The provision of the Connecticut code of 1650 in regard to schools 
is eminently characteristic of the intellectual and religious life of the people. 
Its quaint preamble is as follows : 

" It being one chief project of that old deluder, Sathan, to keepe men 
from the knowledge ot the Scriptures, as in former times, keeping them in an 
unknowne tongue, so in these latter times by perswading them from the use of 
tongues, so that at least the true sence and meaning of the original might bee 
clouded with false glosses of saint-seeming deceivers, and that learning may 
not be buried in the grave of our forefathers, in church and commonwealth, 
the Lord assistii g our indeavors." After this preamble the statue prescribes 
that every township of fifty householders shall provide a teacher to teach the 
children to write and read, and that every town of a hundred householders 
shall " sett up a grammar schoole " in which youths " may bee fitted for the 
university." 

Two points are noteworthy in this legislation and in the educational in- 
stitutions for which it provided : First, the profoundly religious spirit of the 
education of those times. The highest purpose of learning was to be found in 
the right interpretation of that book wherein was recorded a divine revela- 
tion. We notice, secondly, the essentially aristocratic character of the intel- 
lectual life of the time. The mass of the people were considered sufficiently 
educated if they knew how to read and write and to do enough of ciphering 
for the most simple forms of ordinary business. The education in the anc ient 
languages, which was almost the only advanced instruction in the schooN <>f 
that age, was ti) be the special prerogative of those v\ho were called to ilie 



56 TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY. 

ministry or to other learned professions. Between the educated few and the 
general multitude a great gulf was fixed. The clergy were a Brahmin caste. 

There is no reason to doubt that the early settlers of Middletown held the 
same ideas in regard to education that found expression in the law which I 
have cited. The rudimentary education, which in their judgment would 
suffice for the common needs of life, they were determined to place within the 
reach of every child m the town In 1676-7 we learn that Mr. Thomas Webb 
was paid ;^25 for his services as school-master for one year, ^10 of that sum 
being granted by the town, and the remaining ^15 being levied upon the 
"children that have gone, shall goe, or ought to goe to school." When we 
consider that at this time the populatum of the town included less than sixty 
families, the ap[)ropriation for school purposes may seem more generous than 
the three and one-half mills of taxation, more or less, which we have con- 
secrated to our schools in recent years. A striking illustration of the interest 
felt in popular education is found in ihe fact that three of the early settlers of 
Middletown, Samuel Stow, Nathaniel White and Jasper Clements made be- 
quests for the suj^port of the common schools. Those bequests made in the 
early days of poverty still afford a small income to our schools. In 1782, we 
find a body of citizens, represented by a committee consisting of Nathaniel 
Eels, William Sage and Timothy Gibson, petitioning the town for [)ermission 
to erect a school-house at their own expense for the benefit of the town, a 
petition which, it is needless to sav, was readily granted. 

The schools of Middletown have passed through vario'js changes of organ- 
ization in common with the schools of Connecticut in general. In the earliest 
days, the schools of each town were under the direction of the selectmen. As 
the towns increased in size, and their territory became divided into several 
parishes, the care of the schools passed into the hands of the parishes or 
ecclesiastical societies, for in the early da>s of New England, church and state 
were pretty closely united. The control of the schools by ecclesiastical 
societies is recognized in a law of the colony passed in 1712. The super- 
vision in behalf of the ecclesiastical societies seems to have been exercised 
by more or less permanent committees, and in this way the now familiar name 
of school committee came to be introduced into the Connecticut educational 
system. With increasing density of population, the parishes came to be 
divided into school districts, which possessed a certain degree of independence 
in the administration of their school affairs. 

In 1798, a new class of bodies politic was organized in the state under 
the name of school societies. These were territorially co-extensive with the 
parishes or ecclesiastical societies, which previously had charge of the schools. 
But their distinct organization as school societies reveals a separation of church 
and state, in such sense that the schools were no longer to be under ecclesias- 
tical control. Under the organization (.f these school societies, the separate 
districts included within the limits of a single society retained their partial 
autonomy. In the school district system of Connetticut we may recognize a 
most extravagant and pernicious exaggeration of the noble idea of local self- 
government. It is to be hoped that in our own town the system by which a 
dis'rict reporting an enumeration of st ven or eight school children runs an 
independent educational system may be speedily abolished. Prior to 1839, the 
territory of the city of Middletown was divided into ft ur school districts. In 
that year those four districts were consolidated under the name of the Middle- 
town City School Society. In 1856 the schools ot the state were reorganized, 
the school societies became extinct, and the Middletown City School District 
took the place of the Middletown City School Society. In place of the dual 
administration of town visitors and district committees, the schools of the city 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVFRSARR. 57 

'district have been governed by a Board of Education, in whose election 
partisan politics has never had control. Under these conditions the character 
of its schools has rapidly improved. Probably very few cities of equal popula- 
tion and wealth are to-day superior in their school system to Middletown. 
May we not hope that at an early date the other districts of the town may be 
united with the city district, and the benefits of the same system and the same 
administration extended over all? 

Attention has already been called to the essentially aristocratic character 
of the intellectual life of colonial times. The new conditions to which the 
English race was exposed in America, the establishment of national indepen- 
dence, and the spirit of the age in general, gradually transformed an aristo- 
cratic into a Democratic society. 

A sharp distinction between an educated professional class and an unedu- 
cated multitude could no longer exist. Many of the youth of both sexes, 
craved a more advanced education than the common schools could give, 
though not desiring to go to college or to enter the learned professions. A 
new type of educational institutions was demanded, which should be in 
harmony with the new social environment. The answer to this demand was 
in the development of High Schools. Our town may well take pride in the 
fact that Its High School is the oldest in the state. The Middletown High 
School was organized in 1840. 

The honor of this movement is largely due to Hon. Samuel D. Hubbard 
and Dr. Charles Woodward, members of the Board of Education, whose 
influence in its behalf prevailed over great opposition. These two gentlemen 
secured for the purpose of a High School building the site now occupied by 
the Central School, and conveyed it to the City School Society in 1841. 

A building was erected theienn which accommodated the High School 
and also a part of the schools of lower grade. That building was greatly en- 
larged and improved in 1869, and afttrr its destruction by fire, was rebuilt in 
•1879. ^^^^ present High School building was dedicated in 1S96, the first 
building in the town which had been devoted exclusively to High School 
purposes. 

As Middletown was in the front rank in that reform of our educational 
system which was marked by the development of High Schools, it has also been 
in the front rank among Connecticut towns in that later reform which has 
enriched the course of study in the lower schools. No longer is the instruction 
in our primary schools limited to the "three R's." From the lowest primary 
classes upward the effort is now made to open the eyes of the children to that 
glorious universe in which we live, and to make them heed the lessons which 
nature loves to teach to her reverent students. Beside the public schools, 
Middletown has been favored with a number of private schools of high repute, 
some of which have had a brief, but by no means a useless life, while others 
have been somewhat i)ermanent parts of the educational system of the town. 
Time does not ]jermit even a list of these private institutions. The Rev. 
Enoch Huntington, fourth pastor of the First Church, had under his training 
during his long pastorate, a large number of young men who did honor to his 
teaching in later life. Among them was the elder President Dw'ight of Yale 
College. Some time before 1840, a school for boys was established by Isaac 
Webb, a former tutor of Yale College, in the building now belonging to 
^Vesleyan University, and known tnider the name of Webb Hall. Among the 
pupils in that school was Rutherford B. Hayes, upon whose title to the 
presidency of the United States some cloud may have rested, but upon whose 
administration was no stain. 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY. 



59 



The Middletown institute, under the charge of Dr. Daniel H. Chase, was^ 
in operation from 1835 to 1870. Among its pupils was the distinguished 
historian and philosopher who has honored the home of his childhood by his 
presence and words this afternoon. The Parochial School of St. John's 
Church was founded in 1849. From 1866 to 1872 it was under the control of 
the Board of Education and was recognized as one of the public schools of the- 
city. 

In the early part of the present century public spirited citizens of Middle- 
town, felt that it would be in many ways an advantage to the town if some- 
higher institution of learning could be established within its limits. At the 
time of the organization of Trinity college, efforts were made to secure its. 
location in our town, but Hartford i)roved the successful com])etitor. 

In 1819, Captain Alden Partridge, who had been for twelve years professor 
of mathematics in the United States Military Academy at West Point, and for 
two years superintendent of that institution, established in Norwich, Vt.^ 
an institution which he called the American Literary, Scientific, and Military 
Academy. In 1824 citizens of Middletown made generous offers of aid to- 
Captain Partridge, on condition that he would move his institution to this 
town.. Accordingly, in 1825, the American, Literary, Scientific and Military-^ 
Academy was established here, occupying the two buildings now known as 
North College and South College of VVesleyan University. In 1829, however, 
the Academy was again removed to Norwich, Vt., since Captain Partridge was- 
unable to secure from the Legislature of Connecticut a charter authorizing the 
granting of academic degrees. The institution still survives under the name of 
Norwich University. As a military school it has been a most valuable auxiliary 
to the National Academy at West Point, more than five hundred of its-, 
graduates having served as officers in the army or navy. 

It was about the time of the removal of the Military Academy from 
Middletown, that the Methodist Churches of the northeastern states were 
emerging from their early period of poverty and struggle, and aspiring, as the 
representatives of a religious movement born in Oxford University were bound 
to aspire, to have their share in the work of higher education. The generous- 
offer on the part of citizens of Middletown to gi\e the buildings of the old 
Military Academy to the new college, determined the location of Wesleyan 
University in Middletown. The name of the institution reflects the views of 
its founders. The word "Wesleyan," expresses their enthusiastic loyalty to- 
the religious ideas of the great founder of Methodism. The name " Uni- 
versity," exjjresses their intention of associating with the college in due time, a 
group of professional schools. The evolution of the institution has taken a 
different course from what was expected, and the purpose of establishing a 
cluster of professional schools has been abandoned. The only ambition of the- 
institution now is to do better work from year to year in those courses in 
literature and science and philosophy which serve for general culture 

The choice of Wilbur Fisk as the first president of the institution was 
most felicitous. His pure and lofty piety and his gentle and winning manner- 
endeared him to all who knew him, while his tact and prudence, his high, 
administrative ability, and his untiring labors, soon assured the success of the 
institution. Few men have ever possessed in richer measure those attractive 
traits of character which constitute a gentleman, and thereby it came to pass- 
that the representative of a religious denomination, then poor and despised, 
took by general consent a prominent part in the social and civic life of the 
community. It is an interesting fact that some modern ideas in regard to the 
college curriculum were anticipated in a rather crude way in the plans adopted 
bv President Fisk. There was no division into classes. Partial courses were 



^O TWO HUNDRED AND KH-TIETH ANNIVERSARY. 

€nc(Hiraged. Studies were arranged in the catalogue by subjects and not by 
years. The anticipation of the new education was certainly jiremature, and the 
college soon fell into the usual routine of four classes and fixed curriculum. 

It was not until 1873 that the old ideas came to the front in a new form in 
the adoption of a liberal elective system and the establishment of parallel 
classical and scientific courses. Since 1873 the progress of the institution in 
the development of the new education lias been rapid. Time will not allow 
the presentation of details of the history of Wesleyan University. From the 
small beginnings of details of 1831 it has grown in financial resources until it 
possesses a material equipment worth almost $700,000, and an endowment of 
.about twice that sum. 

The Supplement to the Alumni Record, published in 1899, reports 1,544 
living graduates. 

The influence of the college is felt in every phase of our national life. A 
Christian college naturally sends many of its sons into the work of the min- 
istry, and the record of Wesleyan University shows 319 ministers of the gospel, 
of whom 271 are in the Methodist Episcopal Church. In even greater numbers 
the alumni of the college have turned to the work of education. The record 
shows 339 teachers, including 12 college presidents and 97 professors in 
•colleges and professional schools. The influence of Wesleyan University has 
been felt most profoundly in the other educational institutions of the same 
denomination, those institutions having been largely oflicered by graduates of 
Wesleyan. Wesleyan University is a denominational college in the sense of 
-being officially related to a certain ecclesiastical organization, but its spirit is 
free from sectarianism. 

A graduate from another college rightly characterised the spirit of Wes- 
leyan University, when he said, " Some colleges are free and not Christian, 
•some colleges are Christian and not free, Wesleyan is one of the colleges that 
are free and Christian." 

Of those who have been in the faculty of Wesleyan University in the 70 
years of its history, many have been well known in the civic and religious life 
■of the town, but the limits of time forbid even the mention of their names. 
Yet I cannot forbear to remind you that some men are still living in our town 
who remember the colossal sermons of Stephen Olin, which men heard with 
.the same sort of breathless awe with which they look upon Mt. Blanc or 
Niagara, and a larger number of our citizens remember those impassioned 
patriotic addreses with which Joseph Cummings stirred the souls of men in the 
national crisis of i86t. The three score alumni of Wesleyan, resident in 
Middletown bear an honorable part in the professional and business life of the 
town . 

The youngest of the higher institutions of learning connected with 
Middletown is the Berkeley Divinity School. In unusual degree that institu- 
tion is the monument of the life and work of a single man. It is the noble 
memorial of that ripe scholar, that ecclesiastical statesman, that simple, earnest 
preacher, that courtly. -gentleman, the Right Reverend John Williams. Before 
the middle of this century Dr. Williams had already gathered about him a 
group of theological students, when he was the rector of a church in 
Schenectady, N. Y. In 1848 he became president of Trinity College, and his 
students came with him to Hartford. A few years later he was made assistant 
bishop of the diocese of Connecticut, and in 1856 the Berkeley Divinity 
-School was definitely organized and established in Middletown under his 
presidency. 

The school has numbered among its professors many men of high reputa- 
.tion as (Christian scholars. None of these, perhajjs, has been so largely 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY. 6w 

identified with the life of our town as Frederic Gardiner. Member and presi- 
dent of the city board of education, trustee of the Industrial School for Girls^ 
president for ten years of the Middletown Scientific Association, his influence 
was felt for good in many i:)hases of the life of the town, and precious is the- 
memory of his genuine scholarship and his beautiful life. With a fresher sense 
of loss, we remember that in the death of Professor Barbour there passed from 
among us a character pre-eminent in sweetness and light. 

In the educational life of New England the institutions for primary and 
secondary instruction have been for the most part under the direction of the 
local government, while the institutions of higher learning have been mostly 
under tlie charge of private corporations. One of the evils of our educational 
life has been a lack of intimate relation and harmonious cooperation between 
the public schools and the higher institutions of learning. Educational men 
everywhere today are working in the direction of a closer articulation between 
the educational institutions of varying grades — the unification of our educa- 
tional system. In Middletown we have a relation between the high school and 
the college which is mutually helpful. 

Middletown is proud of its educational institutions of every grade, jealous 
of everything that affects their interests. May the achievements of the past^ 
may the possession of the present, be the promise of a nobler future. 

A grand selection from " Carmen," by Bizet, was rendered by the- 
orchestra. This was followed by Greetings from the Daughter Towns, which, 
had been set off from this town. 

"GREETINGS FROM THE DAUGHTER TOWNS," 

Ex-Governor Coffin said : 

We are now to hear greetings from the daughter towns. Chatham, as the 
eldest of the family, comes first, and will be well represented by Capt. Delos 
Daniel Brown, whom I have now the pleasure of presenting. 

Capt. Brown said in part : 

Chatham comes to greet the mother town and to show her loyalty. She 
can do this in no better way than to show that she is worthy. Chatham was- 
incorporated in 1677, and lived in happy contentment with her sister town, 
Portland, until 1841, when Portland was set off as a separate township. 
Chatham's leading mdustry during its early days was ship budding. This in- 
dustry, however, began to declme in 1850, and this industry soon became a 
thing of the past. Later she turned her attention to manufacture, and to-day 
she has more than a dozen prosperous factories. She manufactures more sleigh 
bells than any town in the United States. In conclusion, he said: "May 
Middletown ever remain prosperous, and may her fame extend. May Chatham 
show herself worthy by becoming like her." 

Hon. O. V. Coffin then said : 

Portland is next to be heard from, and her greetings will be very interest- 
ingly offered by her valued citizen, the rector of her Trinity Church, Rev. 
Oliver Henry Raftery. 

He said in part : 

There has always existed strong neighborly bonds between Portland and 
Middletown, and these bonds seemed to strengthen with time. Next to living 
in a city like Middletown is living in its suburb. In a humorous way, Mr. 
Raftery referred to Portland's leading industry, the brownstone quarry. He 
said: "Portland has done more to build up New York, Philadelphia, and 
some other large cities, than any town in the United States. There was a time 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY. 63 

when the Connecticut was a barrier. Men and women in both places seldom, 
if ever, crossed by ferry from one town to the other, but this has changed since 
the trolley line has connected iheni. Now the Connecticut is a ribbon which 
binds the two places mor>.^ closely in the bonds of friendship. Some day when 
Middletown outgrows herself, Portland hopes to become a part of her and 
contain the residences of the business men of the city — the bedroom of Middle- 
town." 

Hon. O V. Coffin then said : 

The greetings of Cromwell are sure to be worthily spoken by Rev. Henry 
Orimes Marshall, the popular pastor of her Congregational Church. 

Mr. Marshall said in part : 

The history of Middletown is the history of Cromwell, as they were one a 
{ew short years ago. When a young country visits the mother land, it is 
customary to bring some product or fruit of the land. Cromwell has not these 
fruits to-night, but in to-morrow's parade will be represented, and the mother 
can then judge the growth and prosperity of the daughter. The leading in- 
dustry of Cromwell is floral culture. In this way we scatter joy and happiness 
throughout the state. Cromwell feels that they have done their part, and 
hopes to meet the approval of the mother. 

Mr. Coffin then said : 

Now comes Middlefield, whose representative on this occasion is, for the 
-moment, the acting Governor of Connecticut, who might well, for the advan- 
tage of the state, be the actual governor. I take pleasure in introducing His 
Honor, Lieutenant-Governor Lyman Allen Mills. 

Lieutenant-Governor Mills said : 

Middlefield is a beautiful town, much the same as Middletown must have 
been in its early days. The view which greeted the eye of the first settlers of 
Middlefield must have been much the same as that which greeted the eyes of 
our forefathers when they first saw the present site of Middletown. The 
youngest daughter comes to hear your history, to pay you homage, and do 
you honor. Since the daughter is so like the mother, strong bonds of friend- 
ship should exist. May they ever grow stronger. Since Middlefield went 
housekeeping for herself she has prospered. Where the Indian once chose his 
game, nciw the wheels of the factory are heard, and instead of the bow and 
arrow the percusion cap is made. The town makes no claim for large popula- 
tion, but for a very prosperous population. We too, like our sisters, extend 
our greeting and wish our mother many returns of the anniversary. 

Thome's " Simple Aven " was rendered by the orchestra. Ex-Governor 
■Coffin then introduced President Raymond as follows : 

Of all the present citizens of this town, not one is better qualified to speak 
upon the topic " Middletown in the Civil War," than that one who partici- 
pated actively in the contest, and is now President of Wesleyan University. 
it affords me especial pleasure to present our friend and brother, Bradford 
Paul Raymond. 

'•MIDDLETOWN IN THE CIVIL WAR." 

The part played by any man or any community in a great historic crisis 
seems trivial. Nevertheless, to lift a torch and add a ray of light to such a 
•day of the Lord as that of '6i-'6^ adds luster to a family name. No voice or 
pen can reproduce the Middletown of '6i. The census of iS6o gives Middle- 




THE MIDDLESEX MUTUAL ASSURANCE CC 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY. 65 

town a population of eight thousand six hundred and twenty. The city lay 
cradled among the hills as to-day. The Connecticut ran noiselessly to the 
Sound as to-day. The symmetrical maple in our valleys blazed like the burn- 
ing bush as to-day. The wide-spreading elm tossed its graceful branches to 
the breezes of autumn as to-day. The streets and the people bore the same 
names for the most part as to-day. But the hour was electric with a spirit 
which this generation has never known, and even the hills and streets, the 
trees and river seemed restless with the utterance of the impending hour. 

A division of parties was inevitable in the vast issues of the war. Busi- 
ness interests were involved. A war with the South meant the ruin of business 
and actual poverty for many families. Political affiliations and political educa- 
tions determined political theory and action. Ethical theories, theories of the 
rights of man, theories of the stite and nation, the interpretation of the con- 
stitution and theological creeds were all involved. The belief on the part of 
many that the controversy could be peacefully settled, the horror of war, all 
these factors, theoretical and practical, were evident in the life of Middletown, 
as in every other New England town. The conflict had been on for a genera- 
tion. It had divided parties in Congress, and in every state Legislature, had 
rent ecclesiastical bodies asunder, and now the rumbling earthquake shook the 
whole superstructure of our government. Had one stood on the dome of the 
national capitol on the 6th of November, i860, the day which made Lincoln 
President, he would have needed neither gift clairvoyant, insight poetic, nor 
temper prophetic to have seen : 

" Fierce fiery warriors fight upon the clouds 
In ranks and squadrons and right form of war. 
Which drizzled blood upon the capitol." 

There was a wordy war in Middletown. There was hot blood and hot 
words, crimination and recrimination, in the store, on the street, in public 
halls and the churches. The political parties were at the fighting point most 
of the time. One of our worthy citizens declared, it is said, that he would 
shoot his grandmother were she arrayed against the Union. Passion blinded 
men's minds for a time. But the issue at length became luminous. It was 
this : The government defended, united ; and freedom is abandoned, disunited 
and defeated, with half of the national domain given over to slavery. The 
flag stood for the government. 

Permit me to give you the news from the files of an old newspaper. Its 
date is Wednesday, April 24, 1861 : " The red, white and blue ; these are the 
prevailing colors everywhere. In the store windows goods are arranged to dis- 
play the national flag. Red, white and blue cockades are worn about the 
streets. The ladies display the colors in their dresses. They have been busy 
for the last two or three days in making up uniforms for the volunteers, in 
preparing bandages, lint, and other things necessary. A. M. Colegrove has 
given the whole stock of his underclothing in his store for the use of the 
volunteers from this city." Dr. Baker offered his services free of charge to the 
families of volunteers. 

On Friday evening, April 20th, a great mass meeting was held in 
McDonough Hall. " Charles C. Tyler was appointed president, and there 
were several vice-presidents. Patriotic speeches were made by Messrs. Tyler, 
Culver, Warner, Douglas, Griffin, and by Revs. Taylor, Dudley and Wood- 
ruff." One of the resolutions passed reads as follows: "Resolved, That we 
tender to the governor of this state in support of the principles herein avowed, 
all the material aid at our command, assuring His Excellency that in this hour 
of our country's peril, the honor and renown our good old state gained by 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY. 67 

revolutionary struggle and sacrifice shall not be dimmed by want of fidelity on 
our part." Other resolutions pledged allegiance to the constitution, support 
for the families ot the volunteers in case of need, and a committee was 
appointed to carry out this resolution. The committee consisted of the fol- 
lowing : " Messrs. Benj. Douglas (then lieutenant-governor), Wm. G. Hack- 
staff, W. P. Vinal, M. H. Griffin, C. C. Hubbard and Rev. Jeremiah Taylor." 
On the preceding day Benjamin Douglas had summoned his workmen together, 
numbering about one hundred and fifty, and told them " that if any of them 
wished to volunteer their services for the government he would provide for 
their families during their absence, and if they should gloriously fall on the 
battlefield in defense of their country's flag, their wives and children should 
not want as long as he had a dollar he could call his own. 

The relation of the churches and the clergy to the cause shows how the 
war spirit had taken possesssion of all classes. Sunday, April 28th, brought 
the clergymen to the front with patriotic sermons, which the reporter says: 
"Though they might not be esteemed evangelical, were certainly patriotic, 
appropriate, and constitutional," and "met the approbation of those who 
heard them." Rev. Mr. Taylor, of the North Church, and Rev. Mr. Dudley, 
of the South, are referred to, and while I cannot learn that they had much to 
say about their texts, they undertook to show that it was the duty of every 
man to uphold the government. Dr Woodruff prayed that there might be no 
dishonorable peace. The flag was afloat everywhere. You might have seen 
the hand of Bishop Williams at the rope, hauling the stars and stripes up the 
flagstaff above Berkeley Divinity School. And Dr. Cummings, massive and 
stalwart, was often on the platform in defense of the government,, and in the 
interest of the volunteer. The issue of April 24th says: "A meeting will be 
held at the Methodist Church, where there will be a public presentation to the 
volunteers of articles prepared for them." The next item reminds one of 
Wendell Phillips when he asks : " Do you suppose that if Elder Brewster could 
come up from his grave to-day, he would be contented with the Congregational 
Church and the five points of Calvin?" No, Sir, he would add to his creed 
the Maine Liquor Law, the underground railroad, and the one thousand 
Sharpe's rifles, addressed "Kansas" and labeled "books." The item referred 
to is labeled " bullets." " These leaden missiles are now being prepared. It 
is intended to present the volunteer company with about eight thousand, or a 
hundred apiece." 

The halls of the college on the hill rang with patriotic songs. In the 
parade and on the platform, the student body was seen and heard in the sup- 
port of ihe cause for which they were to carry arms. Commencement program 
of 1861 makes both valedictorian and salutatorian "excused." The war had 
actually begun No more peace expedients ; compromise is impossible. And 
why impossible — must we now confront the horrors of war? The causes lie 
deep in the past. They have beea wrought into the warp and woof of our 
history. On the 12th of April, 1861, the flash from the brazen lips of a 
cannon's mouth, a cannon sighted on the flag of Fort Sumpter, ignited a train 
of explosives. That flash illuminated the whole north like the swift flight of 
an ominous meteor. The long debate had ended. The sentiment expressed 
in the knit brow of men was : 

No more words ; No more notes. 

Try it with your swords ! Try it by the throats 

Try it with the arms of your bravest and yo\ir Of the cannon that will roar till the earth and 
best ! air be shaken ; 

You are proud of your manhood, now put it For they speak what they mean and they can- 
to the test, not be mistaken. 

Not another word ; No more doubt ; 

Try it by the sword. Come — fight it out ! 




THE F. BREWKR CO. — nl.U CORNER STORE. 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY. 69 

What answer did Middletown make to the grim summons? 

On the 15th of xApril, 1861, President Lincohi issued that memorable 
proclamation, calling for 75,000 troojw "to suppress combinations too power- 
ful to be suppressed by the powers vested in the marshals by law, and to cause 
the laws to be duly executed." One regiment was asked of Connecticut, to be 
composed of 780 men. There was not a regiment of organized militia in the 
state. Without a shred of legal authority that great governor, William A. 
Buckingham of Norwich, on the i6th of April issued a call for a regiment of 
volunteers — fifty-four companies enlisted, instead of ten. What answer from 
Middletown? April 12, the first shot on Fort Sumpter ; April 15, President 
Lincoln's proclamation; April 17, the call by Governor Buckingham ; April 
20, a full company. Company A, of the Second Connecticut Volunteers, every 
man enlisted on that date, and every man a resident of Middletown. I hold in 
my hand a list of the names of Company A. How many would respond to 
the roll call to-night? 

And now for a moment let us forget Middletown and follow those boys to 
the south. Fifty-four companies enlisted from Connecticut instead of ten. 
Three regiments were offered to the government instead of one, and accepted. 
The census of i860 gives Middletown a population of 8,620. The adjutant- 
general's report credits Middletown with 958 men. They were at Bull Run, 
and I have no doubt that they fought as well and retreated as lively as any of 
their comrades on the day of that fortunate defeat. Fortunaie ? It opened 
our eyes and gave us sense, fixed the grim purpose of those that supported the 
government, developed our resources and disciplined our army. One has but 
to follow the gallant Fourteenth, which had about 130 Middletown men, or the 
First Connecticut Heavy Artillery, which had over 100 Middletown men, and 
among them a large number of Wesleyan students, or the Twenty-first with 60 
from Middletown, to understand that they were counted on in the hours of 
•crisis. 

They were in the bloodiest battles of the war. " As regards the loss in the 
Union armies, the greatest battles of the war : Gettysburg, Spotsylvania, 
Wilderness, Antietam, Chancellorsville, Chickamauga, Cold Harbor, Fred- 
ericksburg, Manassas, Shiloh, Stone River and Petersburg. They were at 
Gettysburg, It was there that the Fourteenth made a brilliant charge, captur- 
ing five battle flags and forty prisoners." At Spotsylvania, the Wilderness, 
Antietam, where General Mansfield fell, Chancellorsville, Cold Harbor, Fred- 
ericksburg and Petersburg. There were over 2,000 regiments in the Union 
army during the war. If you arrange those 2,000 regiments in a scale 
determined by the number of killed and mortally wounded, beginning with 
those regiments that lost fewest, the Fourteenth Connecticut stands number 
1962 of the list. Only 45 regiments lost more than 200 men killed and 
mortally wounded, and the Fourteenth stands the 38th on that list. Middletown 
has a just pride in the men that represented her in the field. They represented 
every class in society. They could do anything that was to be done. The 
ingenuity of the mechanic was often in demand. They represented every rank 
in the army from private to major-general. They did the work of brave 
men. 

I should like to write the history of the heroes who did not go to the 
front. In nearly every great battle there is an hour, a moment, when victory 
trembles in an uncertain balance. Steadiness, reserve ]iovver, at the moment 
determines the scales. Such an hour came to the North in the spring of '6^. 
McClellan was in command of the Army of the Potomac from July 25, '61, to 
Nov. 7, '62, with an army of 75,000 to 150,000 men. It was an army which 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY. 7 1 

in intelligence and patriotism had never been ecjualled. McClellan gave him- 
self to the task of training and developing these raw recruits. For this work he 
had genius. He was a man of courage, intelligence, a passion for organization, 
a genius for order. But he lacked aggressiveness. He was forever getting 
ready. His " all quiet on the Potomac " became a byword. And yet so great 
an authority as General Meade says, if we had not had McClellan we could not 
have had Grant. But when we remember Gaines' Hill, Malvern Hill, 
Antietam with its 14,500 killed, wounded and missing, inclnding General 
Mansfield, and the seven days of fight from June 25 to July i, with its 10,000 
killed and wounded, it is made evident that we are learning the art of war at 
terrible cost. Then came Burnside and dreadful Fredericksburg. Hancock 
lost 2,000 men out of 5,000 in a very brief interval of time. Humphrey's 
vain assault on Marye's hill cost him 1,700 out of 3,000 men. When the 
smoke lifted from the crimson altar, 12,197 men killed and wounded, and 
2,145 iiiissing comrades failed to respond to the roll call. We were learning 
the grim art at a great cost. 

And then came Hooker and Chancellorsville, with its 17,197 men killed, 
wounded and missing. We could hardly blow a bugle blast on those battle- 
fields without expecting to see an embattled sjiectral host marshalling them- 
selves in right form of war, and like the belligerent scpiadrons of old give battle 
in the air. Is it to be wondered at that the heart of many in the North failed? 
That many were ready to ask, why this sacrifice, w^hy not let the South go and 
slavery with it ? Can we afford to i)ay this war claim ? This was indeed the 
critical period of the war. But the heart of the nation was true. There was a 
mysterious sense of the sacredness of the nation, and a clear conviction that 
the flag must continue to float over an undivided country, " one and insepa- 
rable now and forever." 

This must have been the hour that gave us Stedman's poem : 

WANTED— A MAN. 

Hearts are mourning in the Nortli, 

While our sister rivers seel<. the main 
Red with our life blood flowing forth, 

Who shall gather it up again? 
Though we march to the battle plain 

Firmly a? when the strife began, 
Shall all our offerings be in vain ? 

Abraham Lmcoln. give us a man ! 

1 know not how the mothers of Middletown felt whose sons were at the 
front, and were enlisting for the front, 'i'hey said with Mrs. Browning : 

To teach them — it stings there — I made them .\nd when their eyes flashed, O ! my beautiful 

indeed eyes ! 

Speak plain the word country; I taught I exulted! Nay, let them go forth at the 

them, no doubt, wheels 

That a country's a thing men should die for at t)f the guns and denied not. But then the 

need. surprise 

I prated of liberty, rights, and about When one sits quite alone ! Then one 

The tyrant turned out. weeps, then one kneels. 

God ! how the house feels ! 

But Lowell, Whittier, Phillips, Beecher and Simpson and a host of others 
had propagated the national sentiment and given sanctity to the national flag, 
and although the people faltered, it was but for a moment. 



72 TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY. 

The sentiment had been propagated by the press, the essayist, the poet, the 
lecturer and the preacher in Middletown. Middletown had had an unusually 
large number of leading men in the pulpit, at the bar, in the schools and in the 
counting room, who had contributed to this sentiment and thus given steadi- 
ness to faith and courage to the faltering in the dark hours of 1863. Rev. 
Jeremiah Taylor, pastor of the North Church during the years of the war, 
Rev. John L. Dudley of the South, Rev. George A. Woodruff and George A. 
Hubbell of the Methodist Church, Bishop Williams and President Cummings, 
were often heard on the great issue and in support of the government. They 
contributed powerfully to the moral sentiment which kept Middletown up to 
the demands of the great sacrifice. Little has been preserved in print, but 
many remember the occasions when these men spoke with, thrilling effect to the 
multitude. 

In April, 1863, Connecticut had more than a thousand troops in the field 
above her quota. Nevertheless, between October i, 1862, and October i, 
1863, Middletown had voted ^98,750, to provide for the families of soldiers 
and to secure men for the service. In the amount expended by towns for war 
purposes, Middletown stands seventh in the state, only New Haven, Waterbury, 
Hartford, Norwich, Bridgeport, and Danbury leading her in these ex- 
penditures. 

I find that Middletown paid for war purposes $5,360,106.87. In the 
campaign which made Lincoln President. 1,474 votes were cast in Middletown. 
If we divide that sum among those who voted at the election, it would make a 
tax of over $3,600 a man. But this material estimate signifies little. We are 
in a great conflict, the conflict of ages, the conflict for national integrity first 
and individual freedom with it. John Adams once said : " The highest glory 
of the American Revolution is this : it connected in one indissoluble bond the 
principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity." We need 
to go to the cemetery and read the names in that holy acre, to learn the cost 
and meaning of all progress. I often ride by and always feel like saluting as I 
pass. And when I read the names of those young men on that memorial 
window in our college chapel, who did not return to us, I learn again the 
lesson, that the assertion and maintenance of lofty principles is always at a 
great cost. The war is a memory now. The old photograph album in the 
home preserves its deepest sentiment. The relics will grow more valuable 
every year. The monument on the green speaks to us of it. The four years, 
'6i-'65, have become history. The smoke of the conflict has died away. The 
rumble of the artillery is no longer heard on the hills. Passion has cooled. 
And we shall soon be far enough removed to discern the revelation in it all. 
" History is the marrow of the universe." "Man's deeds are not an episode, 
they are the whole drama." And we shall yet learn that the lofty peak in the 
granite range of our century was a veritable Sinai, cloud begirt and luminous 
with the presence of God. 

" True Pictures of the North and South " by Bendix, the next selection of 
the orchestra, blended well with President Raymond's eloquent address. Hon. 
O. V. Coffin then spoke as follows : 

During the forty odd years in which I have been fairly familiar with 
Middletown and her people, there has been no instance in which we have had 
better reason to rejoice at the coming to us from elsewhere to reside in Middle- 
town, any individual, than we have felt at tlie accession to our population of the 
Rev. Samuel Hart, D. D., who will now address you. 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY. 7J 

CLOSING ADDRESS. 

I have no excuse, Mr. President, ladies and gentlemen, for adding an 
address of my own to those to which you have so gladly listened to-day, 
except that I have tried to form a habit of obedience, and that I have been 
bidden to speak now. What has one who has stayed but a little along the 
sands that bound the solid land of history to do with the mighty ocean of 
possibility which lies beyond ? What right has a newcomer, however kindly 
received, though he can trace his ancestry back to an original settler, to 
express an opinion as to the present opportunities or the future possibilities of 
this ancient yet youthful town? Yet suffer me first to bring a greeting from 
the Connecticut Historical Society, though I fear you will tell me it is late in 
the day to pronounce it. That society takes a motherly interest in such a 
commemorative occasion as this, and she wishes to extend her congratulations 
to this tenth child of the old colony — no, the fifth child of the original colony, 
and the tenth of the family, as it was afterwards constituted, on its two 
hundred and fiftieth birthday. There had been nine settlements of as many 
different kinds within our present limits before the year was reached which 
closed the first half of the seventeenth century; it needed the settlement at 
Mattabeseck to complete the mystic number and strike the note that should 
mark the completion of the scale ; it needed a center to which men could look 
from the colony of river-towns above, the fort at the mouth of the river, and 
the republic further up the Sound with its daughters on either side, and from 
which they could look forth into the forests and fertile lands of east and west. 
The society congratulates the town. 

And I speak also at the request of your committee, who, as I was saying, 
are treating one who came in to sojourn as if he had a right to a seat within 
your very gates. Yet I cannot venture to act the part of annalist or historian ; 
the outlines of the history of this fair town, and some of its more important 
details, have been traced this day by accurate pens and eloquent lips. 

I may not act the part of a Greek chorus and speak for "the idealized 
spectator," to point the lessons of the past ; still less do I dare to suggest what 
ought to be or may be in the future. Those who came here a quarter of a 
millennium ago, just as the hardest part of the year was beginning to cast its 
shadows — our ancestors, on principle, made their migrations and settlements in 
October, unless they could find an excuse for postponing them until December 
— those who came here must have had some visions of the days which were to 
follow, drawn out perhaps by the bright beauty of the veil of autumn and the 
dreaminess of the air, which betokened the approach of the Indian summer. 
They must have had visions, not at all dim, of a community with a dis- 
tinctively religious life ; and if we have been reminded that the development of 
that life has not been exactly what they thought it would be, who will say that 
their vision was vain, or that they would be disappointed if they were here to- 
day ? They had ideals of civil life in town and commonwealth ; and who will 
say, after the history of these years has been traced before his mind, that the 
ideals have failed of realization ? They knew the necessity and the value of 
sound learning, and one of their first cares was for the right training of the 
young in useful and wise studies. They would not have understood the titles 
of all the departments in which instruction is now given in our university, or 
have approved the exact type of theology taught in our Divinity School, or 
even have grasped at once the purpose of the curriculum of our High School, 
but we may well believe that, were they with us, they could commend every 
earnest effort of ours to discover and propagate the truth. They had in their 
purposes and their character more than the germs of true bravery and patriot- 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY. 75 

ism, and the spirit which deems life of little value as compared with that which 
makes life worth living ; and they would hear to-day with thankfulness the 
story of what their descendants and successors have done on land and sea, to 
guard and extend the liberty and the right, which they so highly valued. 
They were not unmoved by the hope of traffic and of commerce, the stream of 
life which passed by them in the river, carrying their thoughts across the seas 
to the home of their kindred and to other and strange lands ; and he could 
show them the progress in arts and manufactures, the advantages of trade and 
transportation, which have made this place prosperous and which mark out for 
it an ever increasing prosperity. 

In all these particulars, and your thoughts will add others to them, the 
hopes and prophecies of those who stood here two hundred and fifty years ago 
have been more than fulfilled, though in every case the manner of the fulfill- 
ment has been one far beyond the ken of the wisest of our progenitors. If we 
look forward to-day, it is in the hope and the firm assurance that the moral 
and religious character of this community, its civil life, its position as a home 
of learning, its devotions to high standards of patriotism, its advance in that 
true prosperity which comes from the use of opportunities for work of hand 
and brain, shall not be unworthy of the history of the years that are past, but 
rather shall grow out of it in accordance with every true principle of progress. 
We may say of all these things, indeed, that they must abide, unless the laws 
which control the nature of things are abolished or utterly changed ; that we 
cannot fear that religion and learning, civil government and the activities of 
trade and manufacture, shall disappear from among men or shall cease to be 
recognized as a part of our heritage. And it is in this confidence, under 
God's guiding hand, that we look forward now; but that confidence must not 
be made an excuse for carelessness or inactivity. No thoughtful person looks 
back over a long series of years without seeing the time when good and brave 
men were minded to " despair of the republic " in matters moral, or political, 
or social. Changes have come, of which they did not know that they were 
necessary to progress ; hinderances have made their appearance, which they 
failed to recognize as incentives to action; real disappointments and failures 
have seemed to take the place of the prosperous issue that has been expected, 
and they have thought that they were singled out to be the mark of fortune. 

I suppose that there are few places, very few indeed, among those whose 
prosperity has been largely dependent on commerce, in whose annals you can- 
not find some events or some period which give a reasonable excuse for such 
thoughts as these. But neither Roman "virtues" nor Anglo-Saxon manliness 
has any place for despair of the republic, as long as the republic endures ; and 
whatever we may say of the republic of Roman law and force, the republic of 
character and loyalty, of study and work, is eternal. It has the indestructi- 
bility which we have been taught to attribute to the energy of the material 
world ; its methods may change, its powers may require to be directed into new 
channels, its results may be unprecedented, but it is the same in its origin, the 
same in its laws, the same in the certainty that it will yield good results. We 
have examples of the truth of this principle here, in the conversion of the 
ancient commercial energy, which had a picturesqueness of its own, into the 
modern energy of manufacture, which has just as true a picturesqueness, if we 
but look for it, and a good deal more of humanity ; and he would not be a 
wise man who should seek to exchange the latter for the former. 

Of course you do not understand me to mean that there will not arise 
serious questions in the next quarter millennium, taxing the brains of earnest 
men, or that we may leave things to take care of themselves in the comforting, 
hope that they will come under some scheme of general benevolence. I feeL 



^ TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY. 

the confidence which I am trying to express, because it is a confidence in 
men, that they will assume responsibilities and undertake duties: because it is 
a confidence in life, which is an interaction of forces and a resultant from 
them ; because it calls for thought and activity and the trust of good people in 
one another's honesty and ability. Above all things, each item which thus 
-comes before the mind — religion, citizenship, sound learning, commercial pros- 
perity — stands in utter opposition to selfishness, be it the selfishness of the 
individual, or of the party, or of the class. And if I were preaching — I fear 
that you think I am — I should make the lesson of this celebration, testifying as 
it does to a common interest, a warning against selfishness. Somehow the town 
appeals to us in this matter in a stronger way than the city can appeal. We 
have for it, by the training of many centuries, almost a personal affection. It 
is a real thing and not a device accommodated to recently developed needs ; 
and the town appeals to us to mould her future on the right principles, indeed, 
of the brave and God-fearing men, who led a colony here, but in those prin- 
-ciples better understood, better stated, and better applied, by as much as we 
have been able to profit by the light of observation and experience — and, may 
I not add revelation ? — in the years that are past. 

We may hope for some immediate results from this commemoration ; some 
plan for the preservation and publication of the historical material, of the value 
and interest of which we have gained much more than a suggestion from the 
papers read to-day ; some more easily prepared publication which shall tell us 
and tell the communities about us and the outside world of what we are and 
have already, and of what we can do and propose to do ; and the fostering of 
the spirit of true devotion to the common interests, which has accomplished 
much already and can accomplish very much more. But we cannot but look 
forward also to years which may be as far removed from this year of grace as 
is this from the date of our first settlement; and while we may not venture to 
draw a picture of the men and the circumstances of that far off time, but rather 
smile as we think of our inability to forecast the details of the future, or to de- 
termine the paths of progress, we feel thankful that we are committed to 
^ound principles, to principles of duty, honor, and unselfishness, and that, 
though these must meet with opposition, they will be strengthened by every 
conflict and be victorious in the end. We trust that we have not disappointed 
the hopes of men of two hundred and fifty years ago ; we must not allow the 
men of two hundred and fifty years hence to be disappointed because of us. 

The literary exercises of the anniversary were then closed by the audience 
joining in singing "America." The Rev. Edward Campion Acheson, M. A., 
jector of the Church of the Holy Trinity, pronounced the benediction. 




TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY. 



77r 



THE SECOND DAY. 



ONE OF THE LARGEST PARADES EVER SEEN IN THIS STATE. 

The firing of a saluie at 7 o'clock on the morning of Thursday, October 
nth, ushered in the second day of the celebration of the two hundred and 
fiftieth anniversary of the settlement of this town. This was the civic day and 
was devoted to the great parade. The decorations along the line of march 
were the most magnificent ever seen in any city in this state. Main Street was 
ablaze with " Old Glory" and patriotic colors. Some of the views that are 
published in connection with this article give a faint idea of the wealth of 
display that was to be seen everywhere. Nearly everyone decorated, and many 
private houses were profusely trimmed. The Divinity School, the University 
and the public buildings were mo^t handsomely decorated. Union Park was 
beautified, and the soldier standing guard over the flag of his country, set off 
the other decorations most fittingly. 

One of the most striking decorations in the city was that of St. John's 
Church, School and Convent. The convent was trimmed with the national 
emblems and the school building was profusely decorated with Old Glory, and 
red, white and blue arranged in every conceivable manner. On the porch was 
an inscription leading: "We teach the 4 R's, Reading, 'Kiting, 'Rithmetic^ 
Religion." On the steeple were the following lines written by John Boyle 
O'Reilly: 



Give praise to others, early 

Come or late. 
For love and labor on our 

Ship of state ; 
But this must stand above 

All fame and zeal, 
The Pilgrim Fathers laid the 

Ribs and keel. 
On their strong lines we 

Base our social health, 



The man, the home, the town. 

The commonwealth ; 
How sum their merits ? They 

Were true and brave, 
They broke no compact and 

Owned no slave. 
As nature works with changeless 

Grain on grain, 
The truths the Fathers taught 

We need again. 



The national colors, shield and flag on the steeple, were surmounted by an 
eagle. The rectory was one of the most elaborately trimmed residences in the 
city. The front porch was completely covered with Old Glory, and in the 
center was the Irish flag comy)letely surrounded by the red, white and blue. 
On ropes which extended from the top of the house to the coping around the 
yard were hung flags of all nations. 

On the fence of Riverside Cemetery just to the south of the gate, wa s 
large placard with the picture of an earlier settler on one side with an Indian 
on the other. The inscription read : "On this spot the settlers held their first 
religious service under an elm tree and erected their first church." A flag pole 
was attached to a limb of a tree and Old Glory proudly floated to the breeze 
over the grave of Commodore McDonough. 

Among the blocks on Main Street which were most elaborately decorated 
were the McDonough House, The Middletown Coal Comi>any, The Central 
National Bank, The Columbia Trust Company, The Middletown National 
Bank, The Middlesex Assurance Company, David C. Tyler's store, and the 
ornate decorations at the Old Corner store of The F. Brewer Company. 

Fully 25,000, people besides the residents of this city, saw the parade,. 
which in excellence, number of men in line, number of floats, and handsomely 




ST. JOHN'S (K. C.) CHURCH AND ST. JOHN'S PAROCHIAL SCHOOL. 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY, 



79 



decorated wagons, far exceeded anything ever held before in this city, if not in 
the state. The line formed as follows : 

First Division — Captain Wesley U. Pearne, commanding; on Main 
Street, right resting on Washington Street. 

Second Division — F. E. Chapman, commanding ; on Spring Street, 
right resting on Main Street. 

Third Division — Lieut. Joseph P. Quirk, commanding ; on Grand 
Street, right resting on Main Street. 

Fourth Division — Gen. R. A. Chapman, commanding; on Libertv 
Street, right resting on Main Street. 

Fifth Division — Josiah M. Hubbard, commanding; on Washington 
Street, right resting on Main Street. 

Sixth Division — Henry R. Young, commanding : on Broad Street, 
right resting on Washington Street. 

Seventh Division — Frederick C. Southmayd, commanding ; on East 
Washington Street, right resting on Main Street. 

The line of March was down Main Street, (passing in review at the 
Municipal building) to Crescent Street, through Crescent to South Main, down 
South Main to Warwick, through Warwick to High, up High to Washington, 
through Washington to Park Place, to Lincoln Street, down Lincoln to High, 
through High to S[)ring, through Spring to Main, down Main to Grand, up 
Grand to Pearl, through Pearl to Washington, to Broad, through Broad to 
Church, to Main, up Main to Grand, where the divisions were dismissed. 

The parade started soon after ii o'clock in the following order : 

Bicycle Brigade, John Gardner, captain. 

Durham Indians in full war paint. 

Police. 

Brigadier-General Charles P. Graham, chief marshal ; Lieutenant-Colonel 
J. T. Elliott, chief of staff. 

Aids: — Colonel H. L. Camp, Lieutenant E. K. Hubbard, Jr., S. V. 
Coffin, Charles W. Warner, Edward Douglas, Samuel Russell, Jr., H. C. 
Holmes, Jerome C. Smith, C. S. Wadsworth, Dr. F. H. Sage, A. A. Bevin, 
R. S. Mitchell, Major John G. Pelton, L. de K. Hubbard, T. M. Durfee, 
General Williain Jamieson, D. D. Butler, E. G. Derby, George Beach, H. C. 
W^ard, George Savage, John G. Palmer, Dr. McDougall, Charles N. Burnham, 
C. B. Leach. 
First Division — Captain W. U. Pearne, marshal. 

Aids: — Corporal C. Edgar Wood, Karl G. Reiland, Edward S. Travers, 
George W. Schneider. 

Second Regiment Connecticut National Guard. 
Ten companies in the following order : 

Second Regiment, American band of New Haven. 

Second Regiment Drum and Bugle Corps. 

Signal Corps. 

Colonel Timothy F. Callahan, commanding Regiment and Staff. 

Company C, New Haven, Captain J. F. Donovan. 

Company A, Waterbury, Captain H. B. Carter. 

Company G, Waterbury, Captain D. E. Fitzpatrick. 

Company F, New Haven, Captain E. O. Gruener. 

Company I, Meriden, Cai)tain Oscar L. Bradley. 

Company E, New Haven, Captain P. F. Reynolds. 

Company D, New Haven, Captain J. Q. Tilson. 

Company K, Wallingford, Captain Henry Norton, Jr. 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY. 8l 

Company B, New Haven, Captain Frank Pauly. 

Company H, Middletown, Captain W. R. Markham. 

Non-commissioned staff. 

Machine Gun Section. 

Colt's Band of Hartford. 

First company Governor's Foot Guard of Hartford. 

Major Louis R. Cheney, commanding, and staff. 
Lieutenant-Governor Lyman A. Mills and Governor's staff. 
Band. 
Second company Governor's Foot Guard of New Haven. 

Major Edward M. Clark, commanding, and staff. 
Cyrene Commandery, No. 8, K. T., R. W. Burke, E. C. 
Mansfield Post, No. 53, G. A. R., Theodore A. Sage, commanding. 
Boys' Brigade, Captain Yarrow, commanding. 

Second Division — F. E. Chapman, marshal. 
Aids, George S. Pitt, J. H. O'Brien. 
Hatch's Band of Hartford. 

O. V. Coffin Hook and Ladder Company No. i, John McLean, foreman. 
Douglas Hose Company No. 1, R. Maher, foreman. 
Hose Company No. 2, O. W. Karber, foreman. 
Hotchkiss Hose Company No. 3, J. Cressman, foreman, 
Portland Fire Department, F. W. Shuttleworth, chief. 
Hose Company No. i, Timothy Callahan, foreman. 
Hose Company No. 2, John A. Bengston, foreman. 

Third Division — Lieutenant Joseph P. Quirk, marshal. 

Aids, James Collins, Patrick C. Denehey, Albert J. Mallory. 

Catholic Protectory Band of New York, (60 pieces.) 

Ancient Order of Hibernians, and guests, William Kelly, president. 

Forest City Council No. 3, K. of C, and guests, J. P. Quirk, P. K. 

Diego Council, No. 31, K. of C, and guests, W. J. Coughlin, J. W. 
G. K. 

St. Aloysius Y. M. T. A. B Society, and guests, Richard Coleman, presi- 
dent. 

Young Emerald T. A. B. Society (Portland), William O'Brien president. 

Fourth Division — General Romaine A. Chapman, marshal. 

Aids, Aiken Starks, S. Ward Parshley, W. B. Griswold, C. T. Bradley. 
Reeves' American Band of Providence. 

Independent Order of Bread Winners, W. B. Brewer, captain. 
Sons of St. George, Freestone Lodge, No. 93, G. Boothroyd, president. 
Plainville Band. 
Wesleyan University students. 
Briggs' Band of Middletown. 
Kronan Society, Martin Hanson, president. 
Svea Society (Portland), H. Bastrom, president. 
L O. R. M., Aravvana Tribe No. 17, C. Bishel, Sachem. 
This tribe appeared mounted. 

Fifth Division — Captain Josiah M. Hubbard, marshal. 

Aids, Henry B. Crowell, Arthur S. Losey, Fred K. Harris, Robert 
Hubbard. 

Pope's Band of Hartford. 

This division contained large floats and decorated vehicles representing the 
manufacturing and agricultural interests of Middletown, also decorated wagons 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY. 83 

and carts representing the agricultural and mercantile interests of Middlefield ; 
also decorated wagons containing school children from Middlefield. 

Sixth Division — Henry R. Young, marshal. 

Aids, H. V. Barton, Joseph Brazos, Howard Bailey, R. P. Hubbard. 

Philharmonic Band of New Britain. 
""^ This division contained a large number of vehicles and floats representing 
the trades and mercantile interests generally of Middletown : Postoffice, Con- 
necticut Hospital for Insane, Industrial School for Girls, and the town schools. 

Seventh Division — Frederick C. Southmayd, marshal. 

Aids, J- Allen Butler, John K. Sanstrom, Henry M. Wright. 

East Hampton Band. 

Sixty mounted men from East Hampton. 

Decorated wagons and floats from Chatham. 

Decorated vehicles from Portland, representing mercantile, manufacturing 
■and agricultural interests. 

Decorated vehicles from Cromwell, representing their industries. 

Old fashioned vehicles and floats of various kinds. 

It will be impossible to give a complete discription of all the features of 
the parade, but some of the leading ones are given. The Second Regiment, 
C. N. G., had 650 men in line, and was greeted with hearty applause throughout 
the entire line of march. The First Company of the Governor's Foot Guards, 
in their grenadier uniforms, escorted the Lieut. -Governor and the Governor's 
staff, who rode in carriages. The Second Company Governor's Foot Guards 
of New Haven, in their uniforms and bearskin hats, attracted much attention. 
Gyrene Commandery, No. 8, Knights Templar, presented a fine appearance. 
The old veterans led by the Veteran Mansfield Drum Corps, were warmly 
^greeted all along the line of march. The Boys' Brigade and the Russell Flute 
Band closed the first division. 

The second division was heartily cheered, for everyone has a warm feeling 
for the firemen. The officers of each company had flowers in their helmets, 
and their wagons were decorated. The Portland companies escorted a number 
of invited guests in carriages. 

The third division had some 500 men in line representing the A. O. H., 
Forest City Council No. 3, K. of C, Diego Council 31, K. of C, St Aloysius 
and The Y. M. T. A. B Society. 

The Protectory Band of New York, all boys from the Orphans' Home, 
which led this division, was one of the features of the procession. 

Reeves' Band of Providence, R. I., was cheered as they came in sight, for 
all knew that the Biead Winners and their handsome yellow badges were near 
at hand. Captain ^V^ B. Brewer proved to be an excellent drum major and the 
Bread Winners captured the crowd. They had 150 men in line. Freestone 
Lodge No. 68, O. S. St. George, made a very creditable appearance with their 
flags and prize banner. 

Then came Wesleyan with its familiar cheer. The football team rode in 
the 'bus Wesleyan, and the seniors and juniors escorted the faculty, who rode 
in carriages. Then came 1903. They wore white pants and red sashes. The 
class of 1904 dragged the historic Douglas gun, and carried a huge flag of the 
college colors, crimson and black. The Wesleyan students had the Plainville 
Band. In a decorated wagon were the Henry G. Hubbard Drum Corps, and 
then came the Kronan Society. The Arawana Tribe of Red Men, mounted, in 
full war paint, closed this division. It was a fine feature in the line. 






FOR- - 



f ISHER. I 
.1 




GEORGE J. FISHER FURNISHED 2,000 WHISTLES FOR 7HE BOYS 
ON THE DAY OF THE PARADE. 




LEADERS OF THE BICYCLE DIVISION. 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY. 85 

Pope's Band led the fifth division which contained a number of handsome 
ifloats. I. E. Palmer of the Arawana mills had three floats. The first one was 
tastefully decorated and contained three hammocks, reclining in two of these 
were young ladies. In the second float was a tepee, with ten little children 
playing around it in Indian costumes, there was a Shetland pony browsing out- 
side the teepe. Just following this were eight boys dressed as Indians and 
leading Shetland ponies, all these represented "Arawana tribe." Float No. 3, 
was nicely trimmed with hammocks and was drawn by four horses. The L. D. 
Brown & Son Company's four-in-hand, in which were some of its young ladies 
■carrying sunshades, while silk blankets adorned the horses, was universally 
admired. 

The Keating Wheel and Automobile Co. division was in charge of John 
Keating, who rode in a Keating automobile delivery wagon. This wagon was 
followed by a Keating runabout, pneumatic tired; then there was a Japanese 
jurickshaw, with a little boy inside. The whole was surrounded by a body 
guard of men, attired in duck trousers, blue coats and caps, riding Keating 
wheels. The trimmings on both the jurickshaw and runabout were very pretty. 

The Russell Company had three floats. First one contained cotton belt- 
ing, linen and cotton, web halters and surcingles; the second, cotton yarn, with 
the cotton as it grows down South, on the top of the float ; the third was 
trimmed entirely with suspenders, on top being four pyramids of suspender 
webbing. All three floats were nicely trimmed with national colors, with the 
words " The Russell " on the sides. 

The float of W. & B Douglas was tastefully trimmed. It was fourteen 
feet high, eight feet wide and twelve feet long. There was a large globe 
mounted on the float ; on either side of the globe there was the inscription : 
*' Douglas Pumps Go Round the World." There was a pulley attached to the 
rear axle of the float, which with each revolution of the rear axle caused the 
pump to be operated and the globe also. The globe also represented in the 
•center an old water wheel, from which the water flowed as it did in olden 
times. There were nearly one hundred pumps of all descriptions distributed 
near the float. The design was by the secretary of the company, Edward 
Douglas. 

Rocktall Woolen Company had seventeen horses in line, all blanketed 
with woolen mill blankets. One of the horses was marked 1650 and wore a 
gray Bufl"alo robe, a thing very hard to get in these days. The exhibit was 
under the charge of S. S. Stiles. 

The most elaborate feature of the procession was the sumptuous float of 
Wilcox, Crittenden & Co., makers of Ship Chandlery and Awning Hardware. 
The design, which was successfully executed, was to make an effective display 
of the company's products in a picturesque marine setting. The float carried a 
-spacious barge, in which was seated Neptune, the old man of the sea, while a 
group of living mermaids, who appropriately represented his personal attend- 
ants, reclined m the water around him. Ribbons of various bright colors 
passed from Neptune to the mermaids, and also to the mouth of a powerful sea 
•dragon, who appeared as drawing the loaded barge with ease under Neptune's 
careful direction. On the deck of the barge there was a varied assortment of 
galvanized anchors, chocks, cleats and clews, of the company's manufacture, 
and also, for the purpose of guarding Neptune and his crew, a model breech- 
loading brass yacht cannon, neatly mounted on a mahogany carriage. A 
handsome brass railing surmounted the float, which was thirty-one feet long 
over all, and eight feet wide. Venetian posts, from which floated flags and 
banners of Eastern design, supported an ornamental canopy. The firm's 
came, in shining letters of polished brass, showed to good advantage against a 




HKNRY G. HUBBARD DRUM CORPS. 



u. 




TllK BANNER OK THE BREAD WINNERS. 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY. 87 

dark background on the sides of the float, which were also tastefully trimmed 
with loops of show}- brass fittings. Its approach was heralded by a trumpeter, 
who rode in front of the dragon and attracted attention by long blasts on the 
bugle. A team of six horses, each blanketed and guided by a groom in 
oriental dress, drew the float along the line of march. The horses had waving 
plumes on their heads, and on the saddle of each harness a triple set of Russian 
chime bells, which tinkled notes of sweetest melody. The blankets showed an 
announcement of the firm's name and business in plain letters, and were also 
elaborately decorated with festoons, circles and fringes of brass eyelets. 

The display made by the Kirby Manufacturing Company was a fine one, 
and was heartily applauded. It contained ten children, drawn by twenty little 
boys, and a boy acted as driver. In this and the Sixth Division were to be 
found floats reprtsen:ing every manufacturing and commercial industry in 
town, the Westfield schools, the beautiful floats from Middlefield, floats repre- 
senting "Ye Olden Time," "Husking Corn," flax spinning, Mattabesett 
Grange, Continental children, the Westfield Grange, and the Hospital for the 
Insane. The agricultural interests were well represented, and the display of 
ancient and modern agricultural implements was very large. The new rural 
delivery mail wagons, and the Mattabesett Canoe Club, and the coal industry 
of the town were features of the Sixth Division. 

The Connecticut Business College was represented by a float having seats 
and desks. At each seat was a student being instructed in the various 
branches, penmanship, shorthand and typewriting. 

Broderick Carriage Company had a float thirty feet long, with a horse, 
harness and sleigh and pneumatic tired wagon of Mr. Broderick's own make. 
The horse was driven by a little boy. He also had his delivery wagon in line. 

James H. Bunce was represented by three floats. The first was an exhibi- 
tion of draperies, the second carpets, and the third furniture. It was a hand- 
some display. 

Lyman Payne, the music dealer, had a pretty float in line, containing the 
samples of the various musical instruments that he has in stock. Music was 
discoursed along the line by a skilled musician. 

D. Luther Briggs showed some of the best meats that can be grown in this 
country, and a sight of his wagon caused all to wish they could help themselves. 

Hale & Kelsey's float was unique, and emphasized that they were 
plumbers, and good ones, too. 

Allison Brothers are one of the oldest firms in the city, and they made a 
most creditable display. 

The W. H. Chapman company's display attracted much attention along 
the line of march, and their handiwork is everywhere much admired. 

Mr. and Mrs John M. Gardner, on their gaily decorated tandem, called 
attention to the faci that bicycles were sold and repaired at Gardner's L. A. 
W. headquarters. 

Geo. A. Fi^hcr gave away during the parade over two thousand whistles, 
which fact was emphasized by his exhibit, which certainly fulfilled its mission. 

The Seventh Division was headed by the N. N. Hill Band, of twenty-five 
pieces, from East Hampton. F. C. Southmayd was in command, and he was 
assisted by five mounted aides from Portland. 

The Chatham Horse Guards was re])resented by sixty Cavalrymen. They 
wore oil cloth capes, trimmed with yellow ribbons, and yellow hat bands, and 
they escorted sixtj-five members ot the Chatham Infantry, with a string of 
sleigh bells over their left shoulders and around their waists. 

The Rose Hill Drum Corps, of fifteen pieces, Frederick Strickland, 
leader, and Luther Wilcox, major, headed the Svea Society, of Portland. 



SB TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY. 

Charles E. Magnuson was in command, and A. J. Bjorkland aide. There 
were one hundred in line. 

The East Hampton Bell Company had the most unique float in the 
division. It was covered with five hundred bells, and contained a chime of 
eight bells and eight Belles ; the latter were Misses Lizzie Rich, Mabel West, 
Florence Rich, Ruby Starr, Effany Miller, May Childs, Ruby Barton and Lyla 
Rich, Willis Wier was the driver, and Lucius Goff played the chimes. 

The float of the Enameling and Stamping Company, of Portland, was 
trimmed with blue and white tissue paper and was loaded with porcelain ware. 
Shepard & Co., cigar makers, of Portland, had a cigar manufactory on 
wheels and liberally distributed their product among the crowd. Charles 
Twenty and John Kenney manufactured Brownstone cigars in full view of the 
spectators. 

Cromwell completed the division and surpassed all others in the skill dis- 
played in its floats. A banner was carried at the head of the Cromwell com- 
pany, which read : 

The Flower Village. 

Middletown North Society, 

1650-1851. 

Town of Cromwell, 

1650-1900. 

An ancient two-wheeled gig, containing two made-up colonists, and drawn 
by a long-haired horse, was the oldest feature of the Division. A large piece 
of brown stone, from the quarry, weighing two tons, was drawn on two wheels, 
and after the parade was taken to Judd Hall Museum at Wesleyan. A float 
with an old-fashioned well curb and a barrel of water bore the sign ** The 
Old Oaken Bucket," with the original water from the original well, and on the 
rear end was the sign ** Plain People from Over Poplar Hills." The float 
was trimmed with corn, wheat, rye, apples, peppers, flowers and evergreen. 

Another Cromwell float represented the original vessel Mattabesett, which 
carried products from Middletown to the South, was laden with kegs of Porto 
Rico molasses and St. Cruix rum and a mule. A number of industries were 
represented, including moulding, clay making by steam, Warner's hammer, 
brick laying and masonry, stone cutting, rope making, blacksmithing, farming, 
ship building and floriculture. The ship's bell was the old 1776 school bell, 
of the South District. A. N. Pierson, the Cromwell florist, had three floats. 
The first contained flower girls, who strew the road with roses and other cut 
flowers. They were surrounded by an elaborate display of ferns, palms, and 
potted plants. Their second float contained little Carl Ludwig, aged six, and 
Margaret Pierson, aged five. They were dressed to represent bride and groom. 
On the back of the carriage was the inscription, " We are married." 

There were carriages containing the oldest living representatives of the 
town, Marvin Warner and Charles Sage; the oldest selectman, William Noble; 
the present Board of Selectmen and ex-Representatives. 

The parade was over an hour in passing any one point and was twice re- 
viewed, once by the committee, as the line first moved, and again by the 
Lieutenant-Governor and the Governor's staff on its return. 

The Lieutenant-Governor and Governor's staff and friends were given a 
collation at Masonic Temple, other invited guests in the Town Hall, the 
Second Regiment at Y. M. C. A. Hall, the Foot Guards, of Hartford, in 
Council chamber, and the Second Company, of New Haven, in McDonough 
Hall. All these places were finely decorated. There was an abundance to 
eat, good service, and the tables were finely ornamented by fruits and flowers. 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY. 89 

BAND CONCERTS AND FIREWORKS. 

Reeves' Band of Providence, gave a concert Wednesday evening from the 
grand stand in front of the Municipal building. The street in front of the 
building was densely thronged with listeners. The Municipal building 
presented a handsome appearance with the countless incandescent lights. Every 
available space in the windows and balcony of the building was taken by 
spectators long before the band put in an appearance. 

The following is the program under the direction of B. R. Church : 

Orpheus Overture Offenbach 

Piccolo solo, Fred Padley Schertzo. Decarlo 

Selection of Southern Melodies \V. Ferris Chanbiisk 

Trombone solo, " Asleep in the Deep." 

Grand selection from the " Belle of New York,'' .... Kerker 

Duett from the Prison Scene, Sperry and Church . ... 11 Troz'atore 

Second Regiment March Reeves 

The Man Behind the Gun Sousa 

Burlesque of the Salvation Army. 

There was also another concert at the same place on Thursday evening by 
Hatch's Band of Hartford and the Philharmonic Band of New Britain. They 
rendered a very fine program which was greatly enjoyed. 

Through the instrumentality of Dale D. Butler, assisted by the generosity 
of Rev. B. O'R. Sheridan and others, there was an elaborate display of fire- 
works from a float on the river below the railroad bridge, at 7:30 o'clock 
Thursday evening, which was enjoyed by thousands who lined the banks of the 
river. 

THE LOAN EXHIBIT. 

The committee on the loan exhibit had an exhibition in the Y. M. C. A. 
building, a rare and valuable collection of antique and other articles of interest 
connected with the history of this town, which was one of the largest and 
finest exhibits ever made in this state. Over 2,000 articles, embracing rare 
china, parchments, paintings, household furniture, silks, etc., were to be seen 
tastefully arranged on the walls and in the cases. 

The Hbrary of the Berkeley Divinity School was open to the public on 
Wednesday from 2 to 5 p. m., and on Thursday from 9 to 11 a. m., and from 2 
to 5 p. M. 

The gates of Riverside Cemetery, the oldest cemetery in town, were open 
both days, so that the inscriptions on the stones that mark the graves of the 
forefathers of this town, might be perused. 

THE VISITING MILITARY, 

A brief account of the history of the military organizations that took part 
in the parade is given : 

THE SECOND REGIMENT. 

The New Haven Colony in 1638 organized a military company, from 
which the Second Regiment, C. N. G., dates its origin, thus making it the 
oldest military body in America. When the Connecticut colonies consolidated 
the general court appointed all officers. Sergeants were to command less than 
twenty-five men, lieutenants thirty-five, and captains sixty-four. These men 



F 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY. 



9r 



were liable to duty when called upon and must furnish their own guns and 
ammunition. Captains were paid twenty-five shillings a week, lieutenants 
eighteen, ensigns fifteen, and privates nine. The highest officer up to 1672' 
was a sergeant-major. Such was the organization that did valiant service in 
the Indian Wars and formed the nucleus of the gallant regiments of the Revolu- 
tion and War of 1812. In 1680 the office of lieutenant-colonel was created. 
Six drills a year were then held between March and November. These 
"trained bands" were called regiments first in 1697, and sergeant-majors were 
simply called majors. Heavy fines were inflicted on any man who sold or 
injured his arms. " Training days " were the great events of the year, and 
from near and far the yoemanry flocked to the training field. 

It was in i 708 that the governor was made commander-in-chief, a custom 
adopted later by the United States. The first colonel was appointed in 1722. 
In 17351 there were forty-seven companies and thirteen regiments, and three 
thousand four hundred and eighty men. The French and Indian War tested 
the military valor of these citizen soldiers, and proved that the Connecticut 
militia were second to none in bravery, courage and skill. When the War for 
Independence began we find Major-General David Wooster, Brigadier-Generall's 
Joseph Spencer and Israel Putnam and six regiments, whose companies con- 
tained one hundred men each. The struggles of that war were great, but Con- 
necticut met every call for men, and her troops were greatly admired by Wash- 
ington. It was near the close of the Revolution that the Connecticut militia 
was formed into two divisions, six brigades and twenty-four regiments. After 
the war there were found on the muster rolls a captain-general, a lieutenant- 
general and eight brigadiers. The officers' uniform was a blue coat faced 
with red, lined with white, white under dress, white buttons and a blue worsted 
knot on each shoulder. The men wore "white frocks and overalls." A 
black feather tipped with red, worn in the hat, was the distinguising mark of 
the light infantry. In 181 1, a regular uniform was formally adopted by the 
state, and for two years it consisted of blue coats, standup collars, white vests, 
blue trousers, black stocks of leather or woven hair, round black hat with 
Japanned front piece, and a black feather with a red tip. This was the uni- 
form worn during the War of 181 2, when the state quota was three thousand 
men. The spirit of '76 dwelt in the hearts of the men, and the glorious record 
of the past was not tarnished. The brilliant renown of McDonough on Lake 
Champlain does not eclipse the fame of the gallant heroes on the land. 

The changes from 1815 to 1861 were many, but through them all the 
Second Regiment held its distinct organization. After all, it was left for the 
dark days of the Rebellion to bring out the latent military ardor and zeal of 
the militia. Despite the attacks of various Legislatures, and the strain upon 
the state, necessitated by the war, the militia was perpetuated, and in 1865 was 
called the Connecticut National Guard. The eight regiments were made into 
two brigades, and a six days' annual encampment provided for. One brigade 
was the order in 1871, and weekly drills were instituted during the winter and 
spring. The present state campground was bought in 1883, and few states 
can equal it in beauty or location. The present uniform, adopted in 1886, 
follows closely that of the United States Army. It may surprise some to learn 
that it was not until 1865, that flint-lock muskets were regularly discarded by 
law. The state has reason to be proud of its military record. From its ranks^ 
have come some of the ablest generals of the Civil War, and many of its officers- 
have won distinction and lasting fame on the battle-field. 



92 TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY. 

FIRST COMPANY GOVERNOR'S FOOT GUARDS. 

It was customary in the early colonial days to tender escorts to the 
governor on election days, which took place on the second Thursday in May 
annually. In 1768 one of these trained bands was called out for this purpose 
but conducted themselves in such a manner that their proceedings proved to be 
a farce, and grave offence was given. 

A number of prominent people were so impressed with this disgraceful 
conduct, that they were determined to organize a regular military company for 
escort to the governor on these annual election days, and a petition was 
accordingly formed and presented to the General Assembly. 

COPY OF PETITION. 

To the Honorable General Assembly of the Colony of Connecticut to be held 
at New Haven on the second Thursday of October instant : — 

The memorial of us the subscribers humbly sheweth that it is with con- 
siderable expense and trouble that the standing military company in Hartford 
€quip themselves to wait on the General Assembly at the General elections, and 
that their turns come but once in many years — and then it is with difficulty 
they are able to perform said duty so as to do honor to the ceremony — and that 
your Memorialists conceive it would be for the Honor of Government that a 
Company be constituted to perform said service and Ceremony constantly, and 
that your Memorialists are willing to undertake said Task and duty in Case 
they may be exempt from military duty in the Colony. Therefore pray your 
Honors to constitute and incorporate us, the Subscribers, into a Distinct 
Military Company by the name of the Governor's Guard, consisting of sixty- 
four rank and file in Number, Exclusive of Commissioned Officers, and that 
they be under the direction of the field Officers of the Regiment, and have 
Power to elect and Nominate their own Officers from time to time as occasion 
may require, under the direction of said field Officers, and to enlist and 
receive into said company as shall be necessary in case of Death or removal of 
any of said Company ; and that said Company Shall be Obliged to perform 
«aid service and duty Annually, and to dress uniformly and be equipt with 
Suitable Arms as the Colonel of said Regiment shall direct. Which your 
Memorialists Conceive may be done without prejudice to any of the Military 
■Companys already by Law established, and your Memorialists as in Duty 
bound shall ever pray. 

Dated at Hartford the second day of October, A. D., 1771. 

Samuel VVyllys, James Tilley, Daniel Cotton, Eliakin Fish, William Burr, 
Daniel Goodwin, Jr , Nat'h. Goodwin, Timothy Ledlie, James Jepson and 
others. 

This petition was granted and act passed establishing by law a military 
company. Their charter was dated October 19, 1771, and they were called 
the Governor's Guard until 1775, when a second company was formed at New 
Haven, and its name was changed to the First Company Governor Guard, and 
in 1778 to distiuguish it from the Horse Guards, it was again changed to the 
First Company Governor Foot Guard. 

Its first public military duty was to furnish a military escort for Governor 
Trumbull, from the State House to the old Center Church, where the election 
sermon was preached, and ever since they have tendered escorts to the 
•Governors of the State, and have also acted as body guard for President 
Washington, and did escort duty for Presidents John Adams, Monroe, Jack- 
son, Harrison, Polk, Johnson and Grant. As a special feature in which this 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY. 95 

company has participated, the following are a few of the many : Peace Cel- 
ebration, 1815 ; Dedication Groton Monument, Bunker Hill Centennial, 
Battle of Saratoga Centennial, escort to the war veterans Battle Flag Day, 
Hartford, Capture of Major Andre Tarrytown Centennial, New York Evacua- 
tion Day, Bi-Centennial of Worcester Mass., Dedication Washington monu- 
ment, funeral pageant of General Grant, Two Hundred and Fiftieth Anni- 
versary Settlement of Springfield Mass., Adoption Federal Constitution of 
Providence, unveiling statue of General Israel Putnam, Brooklyn, Conn., 
dedication Mason Monument Mystic, Cotton Centennial, Rhode Island, 
Chicago Centennial, Washington Centennial at New York, Atlanta Centen- 
nial, Grant Monument dedication, dedication New London Soldiers and Sailors 
Moument, escort Spanish War soldiers and sailors, Hartford. Peace Jubilee,. 
Philadelphia, Dewey Day, New York, Nathan Hale dedication schoolhouse. 
East Haddam, Camp Field Monument dedication, Hartford, Two Hundred, 
and Fiftieth Anniversary, Middletown. 

Its first commander, Captain Samuel Wyllys, has been succeeded by about 
forty commanders who have been the sons of Connecticut's most distinguished 
citizens, both in military and civic life. The same may be said of its sub- 
ordinate officers, and even of the rank and file. The company own their 
handsome armory situated on one of Hartford's most fashionable streets, and 
was built in 1888 at a cost of some $60,000. They enjoy the reputation of 
being self-supporting, and have on numerous occasions represented the state in 
celebrating historical events. On many occasions this famous command has 
represented the historical state of Connecticut, and perhaps nowhere more 
prominently than at Atlanta at the Exposition of 1895, when the Governor of 
the State, O. Vincent Coffin of Middletown, was escorted by the Guards under 
the command of Major E. Henry Hyde, Jr. Or can history record a more 
dramatic scene than that which took place between the Connecticut and 
Georgia Governors, as Governor Coffin advanced and clasped the hand of 
Governor Atkinson and uttered those eloquent words, " I extend my hand in 
friendship to you as the representative of Georgia." What more fitting 
expression of loyalty could Connecticut give to the Southern states ? 

On October 11, 1900, this Company, under the command of Major Louis 
R. Cheney, with 120 men, and accompanied by Colt's Military Ban{', took 
part in the Two Hundred and Fiftieth Anniversary Celebration of the settle- 
ment of Middleiown. This occasion was a forcible reminder to them of the 
early days, and recalled vividly the struggles for independence, and reopened 
the pages of local history around which cluster so many associations of this 
famous military command. With the great growth of this historic state since 
1771, it has through all these years maintained its ancient uniform and an un- 
broken record, and to-day is so much admired for its heritage of fame, and the 
manly spirit of patriotism of those whose names are on the muster rolls. 

Among these names the citizens of Middletown will find men of whom 
she may be justly proud, the present roster showing a number of names from 
this city. It seems fitting that they should find a prominent place among the 
records of this day, which will pass into history as Middletown's greatest 
event, and their names are accordingly appended : 

Major Com., Louis R. Cheney ; Capt. and ist Lieut., Fred. R. Bill; 2d 
Lieut., Wilson L. Fenn ; 3d Lieut., Charles H. Slocum; 4th Lieut, and Adj., 
William E. A. Bulkeley, Ensign, Wm. Melrose. 

Commissioned Staff Officers — Major, E. Henry Hyde (honorary) ; Pay- 
master, C. C. Strong; Surgeon, M. M. Johnson; Engineer, George H. Folts ; 
Commissary, Henry Bryant ; Inspector Rifle Practice, Robert R. Pease ; Chap- 
lain, James W. Bradin; Quarter Master, Wm. B. Davidson; Judge Adv., Austin. 



W"~rrr 



5, »j"j' 



i'^+i 





^ 



A* **>.. 




TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY. 95 

Brainard ; Asst. Surgeon, A. G. Cook; Ord. Officer, P. H. Ingalls ; Inspector, 
Arthur L. Shipman ; Signal Officer, F. R. Cooley ; Asst. Paymaster, E. Kent 
Hubbard, Jr- 

Non-Commissioned Staff — Sergt. Major, George E. Cox; Q. M. Sergt., 
Edson Sessions; Asst. Q. M. Sergt., Geo. A. Cornell; Sig. Sergt, Theo. H. 
Goodrich; Ord. Sergt., A. F. Woods; Com. Sergt., W. H. Foster; Hospital 
Steward, W. H. Coleman; Asst. Com. Sergt., E. J. Andrews; Asst. Ord. 
Sergt., T. W. Hooker; Color Sergts., A. H. Brooks, A C. Deming; Company 
Q. M. Sergt., James Carter. 

Sergeants — Harry Prutting, W. H Wilson, H. S Ellsworth, T. W. Lai- 
man, J. C. Pratt, E. W. Alexander, C. E Stedman, J. C. Gorton. 

Corporals — F. H. Forbes, R. D. Coudry, T. A. Kimberly, |. M. Grant, 

E. B. Phillips, J. M. Clark, C. D Haynes, W. A. Canty. 

Active — E. VV. Alexander, Wm. Argus, Jr., C. H. Adams, F. E. Ander- 
son, A. H. BuUard, R. H. Burton, J. E. Bruce, B. L. Biakesey, W. T. Bart- 
lett, W. H. Blodgett, C. O. Briggs, H. S. Burt, O. Buckhardt, C. E. Barrett, 
C. A. Baldwin, S. B. Bedell, C. B. Bodwell, H. W. Bacon, C. H. Belknap, 
H. C. Barlow, D. F. Conkey, J. F. Coombs, W. C. Cheney, G. D. Clark, 

F. W. Crosley, O. P. Clark, W. J Connor, W. H. Dunn, J. W Brown, C. 
R. Fisher, G. G. Forbes, A. E. Fenner, R. H. Fox, J. T. Grady, H. B Gard- 
ner, J. J. Grady, M. J. Hanlon, J. W. Hopper, S. G. Huntington, H. L. 
Huntington, G. N. Holcomb, C. A. Hanson, S. H. Hascall, O. J. Hart, W. 
R. Hills, J. P. Hills, Geo. L. Johnson, E. P. Jones, C. F. Koenig, W. B. 
Kinghorn, E. J. Kennedy, C. F. Loomis, R. H. Lewis, C. A. Loomis, T. U. 
Lyman, G. M. Langdon, G. A. Long, L. S. Laws, A. R. McKinnev, P. F, 
McKee, E. L. Montgomery, W. J. Morcom, C. C. Maslen, Geo. A. Mahl, Jr., 
E. Mitenius, Wm. Mahoney, G. J. A. Naedle, G. Newell, H. Y. Nutter, H. 
H. Olcott, W. H. Pease, E. L. Perry, J. Pepion, Jr., George Penfield, W. J 
Palmer, T. F. Sullivan, S. B. Rowland, C. B Sherwood, G. A. Snow, W. G. 
Smith, F. G. Stocking, E. A. Sherman, C. E. Stanton, E D. Strong, J. A. 
Sutherland, Jr , R. B. Starkweather, C. S. Stern, L. H. Stanley, F. H. 
Stocker, T. J. Scott, F. L. Trant, H. N. Tuttle, H. A. Tyler, Jr., C. S. Wad- 
worth, Wm. Ward, M. P. Walker, F. L. Williams, Charles Yauch. 

SECOND COMPANY GOVERNOR'S FOOT GUARDS. 

The Second Company of the Governor's Foot Guards, of New Haven, 
dates back to 1774, when the colonies were in a ferment, preparing for the 
great struggle for independence. Three days after Christmas of that year the 
first meeting was held for the purpose of organizing the company. On that 
day sixty-four members of New Haven colony, including Benedict Arnold, 
affixed their names to an agreement and formed a company, which was in- 
structed in the military exercise by Edward Burke. When the instructor had 
placed the company on a military basis on February 2, 1775, the company 
met and adopted their uniform In March, the company intt and elected 
officers, and Benedict Arnold was chosen captain. Hon. Pierpont Edwards, 
as agent of the company, presented a memorial to the General Assembly, ask- 
ing to be constituted a distinct military company of Governor's Guards. The 
same day of the presentation, the memorial was made the special business of 
the Assembly and the charter granted to the company. 

The company was assigned to the duty of attending upon and guarding 
the governor and General Assembly, at all times when occasion required, 
equipped with the proper arms and under the direction of the officers. The 
company was organized independently of the regular colonial military, but 



96 TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY. 

was subject to the general militia law. The Guards continued under this 
arrangement until the news of the battle of Lexington reached New Haven, 
when they were immediatly assembled and fifty of them voted to proceed to 
Boston to the assistance of their country. On the 2 2d of April, after an in- 
spection on the Green, an address by Rev. Jonathan Edwards, they took up 
their march to Boston. They set forth an agreement and proclamation, taking 
up arms in the cause of liberty. This proclamation was the first of any military 
company in the country of armed resistance to the authority of the English 
government. 

About forty commenced the march to Boston. Being in want of ammu- 
nition, under Captain Arnold's command, they marched to the house where 
the selectmen were sitting, and forming themselves in front of the building 
demanded the keys of the powder house, ammunition having been refused 
them. They told the selectmen that if they were not granted the keys they 
would break in and help themselves. It is needless to say that the officers of 
the colony delivered up the keys, and the precocious company of patriots started 
on their march, well supplied with the munitions of war. They stopped at 
Wethersfield, where the natives gave them a great reception, and then took 
the middle road through Pomfret to Putnam, where they were joined by Israel 
Putnam, who went with them to Cambridge. The company was the only one 
on the ground complete with their uniforms and equipment, and owing to their 
soldier-like appearance were appointed to deliver the body of a British officer, 
who had been taken prisoner at Lexington and died of his wounds. Their 
appearance caused surprise in the British camp, and the English declared that 
the company was not excelled by any of His Majesty's troops. After remain- 
ing nearly three weeks at Cambridge the company returned to New Haven. 

The company saw hard service during the Revolution and in the War of 
181 2. In the War of the Rebellion the company was attached to the Sixth 
Regiment, C. V., and they became Company K of that regiment. The com- 
pany rendered gallant service in the war, and many of the members mustered 
in were killed in the field of battle. Subsequent to this, the company was 
mustered on several occasions, not in time of war, and redered service. In 
1893 the company was recruited up to its full quota. Officers were elected at 
this time, and soon afterward the company secured their present home, where 
they have been situated ever since. For the Spanish War of 1898 the company 
enlisted two hundred and forty-one men and a fiill infantry company of one 
hundred and six officers and men were enlisted and prepared for service at the 
expense of the company. Many of these have since re-enlisted in the regular 
and volunteer regiments, and are now seeing service in the Philippines, 



HISTORY OF THE TOWN OF MIDDLHTOWN. 

In this sketch it is not intended to give a full account of all that has 
occurred since the town was settled by the pioneers from Hartford, Wethers- 
field, and other places, but to present in a succinct form some of the events 
that are worthy of preservation. 

The original town of Middletown included the towns of Chatham, Port- 
land, Cromwell, Middlefield, and a small part of the town of Berlin. The 
original records of the town are somewhat meagre, and the records of the 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY. 97 

deeds given by the early settlers are to be found in Hartford, as this town was 
a part originally of Hartford County. Middletown was first known by its 
Indian name of Mattabeseck. As early as 1639 the records of the General 
Court show that there was trouble between the colonists and a tribe of Indians 
who lived here. The inhabitants of Wethersfield had given provocation to 
Sowheag, the Indian chieftain, owing to the latter's sympathy with the hostile 
Pequot. The first steps taken towards a settlement of Mattabeseck were in 
1646, when a Mr. Phelps was added to a committee for the planting of a 
colony here. This committee reported regarding the land on both sides of 
Little River, that they would support fifteen families. The original settlement 
of the town was north and south from Little River, and the first settlers came 
in 1650. The records in 1651 state, "It is ordered, sentenced and decreed 
that Mattabeseck shall bee a Towne, and that they shall make choyce of one 
of theire inhabitants according to order in that case, so that hee may make take 
tne oath of a constable the next convenient season." The town was repre- 
sented in the General Court in the autumn of 1652, and in November, 1653, 
the General Court changed the name from Mattabeseck to Middletown. Why 
that name was chosen is not known. Some think that it may have been from 
the fact that the settlement was about halfway between Hartford and Saybrook 
settlements. " Mattabeeseec," as it is spelt in the oldest writings of the 
colonists, was the name given by the Indians to the stream west of the city 
of Middletown, which flows in a northerly direction into the meadows, where 
it unites with the Sebethe or Little River. It is now called the Arawana. 
Whether orginally the Mattabeeseecs gave their name to the stream, or that the 
tribe was named from the stream, is not known. 

Sowheig, or Soheag, was the Great Sachem, or Sassanac, of this powerful 
tribe of Mattabeeseecs. Before the settlement of this town he sold to Mr. 
Haynes, governor of Connecticut, a great part of the township. Sowheig 
ruled over a large tract of country on both sides of the Connecticut River, in- 
cluding the Piquag or Wethersfield Indians, also a tribe on the north branch 
of Sebethe River in Berlin. The township of Farmington is supposed to have 
been part of his dominions. He lived on Indian Hill. When he wished to 
assemble his braves for council or war, he would stand on the hill, and blow a 
powerful blast on his wondrous horn or shell, which could be heard all over 
the surrounding country, and the fleet-footed warriors would soon come 
rushing in from east, west, north and south, in answer to the call of their 
mighty chief. This shell, or horn, was far famed among the neighboring 
tribes and white settlers for its wondrous, far-reaching sound. It was probably 
buried with him. Nothing could induce the Indians to reveal his place of 
burial. If asked, their eyes would flash in anger, and they would reply " that 
death should seal their lips before they would disclose it." A field north of 
the city near Sebethe River, which bore his name, where stone arrows were 
formerly found, was thought by many to have been a battle-field, but more 
probably it was the Sachem's residence with many of his tribe during the 
fishing season, when the salmon went up that river to spawn. 

In the year 1776 the spot selected for the Alsop family tomb, in " new 
burying ground " (now Mortimer Cemetery), was a small elevation or mound, 
a few feet in height and fifteen or twenty feet in diameter. It was composed 
mostly of sand and gravel, which had evidently been brought here, as it 
differed from the surrounding ground, which was a fertile mould. The work- 
men, while digging for the foundations of the tomb, came upon a human 
skeleton, sitting in an erect position, with a stone pot by its side, which had 
been broken by their mattocks. It is well known that the Indians in this part 
of the country buried their chiefs and great warriors in this manner. 



98 TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY. 

In the early settlement of the town, when there were but few inhabitants 
and the Indians had removed to some distance from them, a small remnant of 
the Mattabeeseecs retained possession of the hill on the " Great River," south- 
east of the town. Here they fortified themselves and made what at that time 
was called "a strong house," which was composed of stakes driven in the 
ground, and strongly interwoven with boughs and filled with earth. This en- 
closed their wigwams and where they might defend themselves from a powerful 
and war-like tribe, who were at enmity with them, and who are said to be 
Mohawks by the white settlers. These Mohawks lived near where Glastonbury 
now stands. So great was the fear the white settlers had of these Indians, that 
if one painted and in war dress passed through the town, as they sometimes 
did, to insult, defy, or exact tribute from the Indians at Fort Hill, they shut 
themselves in their houses, barred their doors, and did not venture forth till 
the dreaded Mohawk had left the place. Such was the terror these Indians 
inspired that for many years after, "A Great Mohawk " was sometimes used'**^- 
a term of reproach and detestation. The Mattabeeseecs were peaceable and 
kind to their white neighbors, and in turn were kindly treated and esteemed 
by them. 

One night the Mohawks dropped silently down the river in their canoes, 
surprised the Mattabeeseecs, burned the fort, massacred and scalped all but a 
few who had escaped to the river and endeavored to save themselves by 
swimming across, but they were shot by the arrows of their foes. A young 
squaw in the midst of the attack, rushed from the fort with her infant, and fled 
for refuge to the house of a white man, near the foot of the hill, whose name 
was said to be Markham. He was absent; his wife was alone in the house. 
The squaw had scarcely concealed herself and child under the bed, when a 
ferocious Mohawk entered, brandishing his tomahawk in a threatening manner, 
and demanded where she was. The terrified woman nodded towards the bed. 
He dragged her out and dashed out the brains ot the child against the floor, 
tomahawked the mother, tore off her scalp and that of her infant. Not a 
Mattabeeseec escaped. Thus perished this remnant of that once powerful 
tribe. 

The Indians as a whole dwelt peaceably with their white neighbors, but they 
as the years went by gradually disappeared. The last of the Mattabeeseecs was 
Mamoosun. His name was preserved for generations after he passed away by 
the old sycamore tree, which stood on the west side of the road to " the Upper 
Houses," north of Sebethe bridge, and was called Mamoosun's tree, after the 
old Indian who abode in its huge trunk at night and in stormy weather, 
during his annual autumn visits to the graves of his tribe, which were in the 
"Indian Burial Ground " on the west bank of the Sebethe River in Newfield. 
The Berlin Branch road passes through part of it, just west of the railroad 
bridge. When building the road in 1849-50, several human skeletons were un- 
earthed at this place, which were undoubtedly those of this tribe. In the last 
half of 1700 this tree was the largest and tallest on the meadows, a very 
monarch of the forest. Its age is unknown, but it was hollow, and Mamoo- 
sun's resting place in 1720, perhaps earlier as well as later. Mamoosun was a 
sensible, stately Indian. On his arrival in Middletown he would pass in silence 
to the burial ground, where he remained some days in sad meditation, visiting 
the graves, clearing them of brush and weeds, and freeing from moss the un- 
shapen stones, which bore emblematic figures understood by him, — a flower, a 
deer, an arrow, etc. 

Mamoosun had outlived his children, relatives, and early companions, and 
his sole gratification seemed to be to visit the place where their remains lay. He 
was the sole survivor of his race. After his visits to the graves, when about tO' 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNlVEkSARV. 99 

return, he would ^o to the house of Mr. Gilbert, the owner of the farm, with 
whom he was on friendly terms and by whom he was hospitably received. He 
would eat and converse with him, and conjure him not to cultivate the "Burial 
Ground" while he lived, which was willingly promised and faithfully adhered 
to. At last his visits ceased, but not for several years was the ground disturbed. 



,• . 




-» 






' . ,1 






- ■■ ' ■ - '■■■ ■ -■- .^ .-: . • ' ' 





THE OLD SYCAMORE TREE. 



Before the settlement of the English, the Indians had a burial ground at 
Newfield, with rude monuments placed over their dead, on which emblematic 
devices were carved. Some of these stones were in a stone wall fencing the 
property a number of years ago. At the foot of the bank, called "The Point," 
where the Sebethe forms a cove, the Indians had a " Medicine House," where 
the sick were taken and given a sweat by standing or lying over hot stones 
buried in the earth. Then they rushed out and ])lunged into the waters of the 
cove. This cove is now nearly filled with reeds, and only in high water can a 
boat reach the Point. 

The original settlers of this town came for the most part from the settle- 
ment in the Hartford colony, and included, during the first ten years : Thomas 
Allen, Nathaniel Bacon, William Bloomfield, William Cornwell, John Hall, 
John Hall, Jr., Richard Hall, Samuel Hall, Giles Hamlin, Daniel Harris, 
William Harris, George Hubbard, John Kirby, John Martin, Thomas Miller, 
John Savage, William Smith, Samuel Stocking, Rev. Samuel Stow, Matthias 
Treat, Robert Webster, Thomas Whitmore or Wetmore, Nathaniel White, 
Nathaniel Brown, William Cheney. Henry Cole, George Graves, William 
Markham, Joseph Smith, William Ward, John Wilcox, John Cockran, Robert 
Warner, Samuel Eggleston, Thomas Hopewell, and Thomas Ranney. 

Among those who settled here during the next forty \ ears are : Josiah Adkins, 
Obadiah Allen, Thomas Barnes, Samuel Bidwell. William Beggs, John Blake, 
John Boarn, Alexander How, Thomas Burk, Samuel Clark, Jasper Clements, 



lOO 'IWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVEKSAKY. 

Nathaniel Collins, Samuel Collins, Thomas Cooper, Samuel Cotton, Samuel 
Doolittle, George Durant, John Elton, Thomas Ferman, Edward Foster, 
Jonathan Gilbert, John Gill, Richard Goodale, Benjamin Hands, Edward 
Kigby, Thomas Hill, John Hulbert, Isaac Johnson, Francis Jones, John 
Jordan, Isaac Lane, Thomas Lewis, William Lucas, Daniel Markham, Anthony- 
Martin, John Payne, George Phillips, Daniel Prior, ^Villiam Roberts, Joseph 
Rockwell, Alexander Rollo, Noadiah Russell, David Sage, Arthur Scoville, 
Edward Shepard, Joseph Smith, William Southmayd, Comfort Starr, James 
Stanclift, John Stow, Nathaniel Stow, Thomas Stow, William Sumner, James 
Soppin, Edward Turner, John Ward, Andrew Warner, Benjamin West, Francis 
Whitmore, and James Wright. 

The records of the town prior to 1652 are lost, but are complete from that 
time on. One of the earliest deeds on record in the town clerk's office, relates 
to a point of land now seldom recognized by its old name of Buck's Point. 
In volume I, page 4, of the old land records of this town, is a deed of sale to 
John Hall, of Buck Point, bounded south and east by the Connecticut River. 
This point is opposite the city where the river turns towards the straits, and 




THE MEETING HOUSE. 



is now some distance inland owing to the accumulation around it of sand and 
debris brought down by the freshets year by year. In the early settlement of 
the town this point was frequented by a large buck, whose constant appearance 
there attracted the attention of the settlers, and more so as several unsuccessful 
attempts were made to shoot him, but no ball was ever known to hit him. This 
roused the superstitious who believed in witchcraft, and gave rise to the belief 
that the buck was a wizard, or protected by magic. It was generally believed 
that if a person carried a Bible with him he might shoot him with a silver 
bullet, but if tried it did not succeed. The buck continued to visit this point 
daily for a long time, which from this circumstance derived its name of Buck 
Point. 

The first recorded vote of the town, February 10, 1652, was in reference 
to the building of a meeting house. The legendary history of the town states 
that the first public worship was held under a large elm tree, situated near the 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY. lOI 

entrance to the present Riverside Cemetery. It was here the first church was 
built. The record reads: "It was agreed at a meeting at John Hall's hous, to 
build a meeting hous and to make it twenty foot square and ten foot between 
sill and i)lat, the heygt of it." This house, which was soon built, was 
surrounded by palisades, as a protection against their Indian neighbors should 
trouble arise. The history of the town from that time on is very much like 
that of all other Connecticut towns. The settlers were noted for their energy 
and uprightness of character. They lived in peace with their Indian neighbors, 
the population steadily increased, and in 1703 the Upper Houses, now Crom- 
well, were set off as a separate parish. Middlefield was settled in 1700 and in- 
corporated as a parish in 1744. Westfield was settled in 1720 and became a 
parish in 1766. That ])()rtion of the town east of the Connecticut was settled 
about 1700 and the parish of East Middletown was organized in 1717 by thirty- 
one persons. Middle Haddam was settled in 1740 and incorporated as a 
parish in 1749. 

The increiise in population during the first hundred years was slow, as 
there was nothing to invite ra|)id immigration. What wealth the people had 
was the result of their own frugality. The people were known among the 
Colonies everywhere for their strong religious convictions. The first vessel 
owned here, of which there is any record, was in 1680, a seventy-ton schooner. 
During the fifty years preceding the Revolution, Middletown became more and 
more prosperous and had established quite a trade with the West Indies. The 
population in 1776 was 5,037, of whom 201 were blacks. The residents of 
this town have always been patriotic. In Queen Anne's war there were 140 
volunteers from the little colony of Middletown, and in the French and Indian 
wars of 1744 and 1755, this town was represented by a large number of its 
brave young men. 

When the Revolution broke out Middletown had a prosperous foreign 
commerce and few towns in the state felt the calamities of that war more keenly 
than did this town which to-day celebrates its Two Hundred and Fiftieth Anni- 
versary. There was no hesitancy, but a rigid determination, to assist in the 
struggle for independence. On receipt of the news of the battle of Lexington 
in April, 1775, Captain Return Jonathan Meigs marched his com|)any of 
infantry, fully armed and equipped, to the suburbs of Boston where they joined 
Capt. Comfort Sage and his troop of artillerymen. In the same month Samuel 
Holden Parsons and others, undertook the capture of the fort at Ticonderoga 
and were successful. The lead mine, then in the possession of Colonel James, 
a British officer, was seized and the ore used to furnish bullets for the patriots. 

The story of Middletown men in the Revolutionary war is a proud one. 
Among the more prominent Revolutionary officers were : Colonel Return 
Jonathan Meigs, to whom the state owes the funds derived from the sale of the 
Ohio reservation, his brothers John, Giles and Josiah, General Samuel Holden 
Parsons, Nehemiah Hubbard, a quartermaster general. Colonel Matthew 
Talcott, Captain John Pratt, Lieutenant Jonathan Hubbard, Colonel Jon- 
athan Johnson. Lieutenant David Starr, Captain Elijah Blackman, Captain 
Robert Warner, Captain Edward Eells, Captain Abijah Savage, Lieutenant 
Hezekiah Hubbard, Captain William Sizer, and others of the rank and file 
whose names to-day are held in grateful remembrance. 

In the war of 181 2 Middletown will ever be remembered as the home of 
Commodore McDonough, the hero of Lake Champlain. 

It was in the war with Mexico that Capt. Joseph King Fenno Mansfield, 
U. S. A., won the reputation as a brilliant military officer. The story of 
Middletown in the Civil War is one of loyalty to the flag and of generous sup- 



I02 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY, 



port and sympathy for the families of those who were fighting for the defense 
of the country. 

On the 9th of May, 1861, the Mansfield Guards embarked for Washington, 
On the 1 6th of the same month the Wesleyan Guards, Capt. Robert G. 
Williams, and the Union Guards, Capt. A. C. Clark, left for Hartford to join 
their regiment, afterwards known as the First Connecticut Heavy Artillery. 
Middletown men were found in nearly every regiment recruited in this state. 
The story of their bravery at Antietam, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, Peters- 
burg, Fredericksburg, Cold Harbor, and other battles, is too well known to 
need further description here. At the Battle of Antietam, General Mansfield 




GENERAI. MANSFIELD'S MONUMENT. 

was mortally wounded, dying on the next day. His funeral occurred 'on 'the 
24th of September, 1862, and the monument, which marks the spot where he 
was shot, was dedicated last May- 
One of the best ecpupped regiments of the Union army that went out from 
Middletown at the time of the war was the Twenty-fourth Regiment. In the 
fall of '62 a draft was made for three hundred thousand nine months' men. 
Samuel M. Mansfield, eldest son of Major-General James K. F. Mansfield, had 
just graduated from West Point. He undertook the mustering of the com- 
panies that afterwards formed the Twenty-fourth, and in a short time was 
placed in command and was given the rank of colonel. For months the regi- 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY. 



103; 



nient was encamped, and had their headquarters on Fort Hill, now the site of" 
the Connecticut Hospital for the Insane. During the time they remained in 
camp the ladies of the town showed them every attention. All the soldiers: 
were supplied with buttons and sewing material, testaments, and other articles 
that the ladies considered would be useful to them. Among the leaders of and 
most active workers in this movement were Rev. and Mrs. Bruce. Mr. Bruce 
was at that time pastor of the Universalist Church When the regiment was 
ordered south there was a scene at the camp that was heart-rending. The griefs ^ 
of mothers and wives parting from their sons and husbands was a picture of 
emotion that one could scarcely behold. 

During their service the regiment made an excellent record, especially in 
their engagements at Baton Rouge, La., and Port Hudson. On their return to- 
Middletown the town was afire with enthusiasm and ablaze with red fire. The 
ladies had arranged an elaborate reception for them, and when they arrived at 
the railroad station nearly everyone in town was there to meet them. The 
soldiers were escorted to McDonough Hall, where breakfast was served. 

The City of Middletown was incorporated in May, 1784, and the County 
of Middlesex in 1785. The first Court House, a cut of which is given, was- 







THE FIRST COURT HOUSI 



built on land purchased of Samuel Russell, at the corner of Talcott Lane and' 
Pearl Street, in 1788, for ^550. The house of J. Peters Pelton now occupies 
the original site. The total cost of the building was ^851. The contract for 
digging the cellar and laying the foundation walls was made with Joel Hall, of 
Chatham, for ^^72, and was paid in rum ; that for the frame was made with 
Samuel Hawley, of Middlefield, for ^130, payment for the same being made 
in West India rum, at 3 shillings per gallon, and molasses at 16 pence per 
gallon. The frame cost 750 gallons of rum and 231 gallons of molasses. The 
second Court House was built in 1832, and cost $10,100. The third Court 
House, or the present Municipal Building, was completed in 1893, at a cost of 
$100,000. 

There are now standing in this city several houses which are older than 
the city by from thirty to sixty years. They are passed by hundreds of people 
and attract no more attention than any others. The oldest of these buildings 
is probably what is known as the Gaylord house, on Washington Street, for 



104 TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY. 

many years the residence of Dr. Edgerton. This house was built in 1720. Ir> 
1750 it became the property of Captain Michael Burnham, who kept a tavern 
there as long as he lived. It was a substantial structure and quite roomy. 
What stories its walls could tell ! In this place St. John's Lodge of Free and 
Accepted Masons was organized February 4, 1754, the complete records of 
which organization are preserved and carefully kept. 

The long house on the north side of Washington Street, near Main, now 
the property of John L. Fisk, was purchased in 1756 by Jehosaphat Starr, the 
first master of St. John's Lodge. How long it had been standing is not 
known. Its peculiar shape is due to the fact that Mr. Starr's family was so 
numerous that he was compelled to enlarge it, and the easiest was considered 
the best way, so it was extended in the direction of the ridge. Another 
ancient mansion is that on the corner of Broad and College Streets, now 
owned by Charles A. Boardman. It was purchased in 1756 by Benjamin 
Henshaw, and in its history it has been the home of many people who have 
become noted. The house of Miss Kilbourne, on South Main Street, was built 
in 1710. The Wetmore homestead, on the Meriden turnpike, was built in 
1746. Judge Wetmore, who built it, was Deputy from this town forty-eight 
terms, from 1738 to 1771 ; was Judge of the County Court and Justice of the 
Quorum for many years. Jonathan Edwards and Timothy Dwight, both after- 
wards presidents of Yale College, were accustomed to visit their aunt, the wife 
of Judge Wetmore, here, as did also Pierpont Edwards and Aaron Burr, who 
were also nephews. The Hubbard house on Farm Hill was the birthplace of 
Gaston T. Hubbard, and was built over one hundred and fifty years ago and 
has been well kept. It was at one time used as a hotel. The Hubbard house, 
on Main Street, now occupied by Mrs. Samuel L. Warner, and the Wright 
house, are both well known. In the Wright house are some of the first bricks 
ever made in this region. 

There is a good deal of history connected with the ancient buildings. 
Very important changes have come to this town since they have been in exist- 
ence. Although Middletown at the time of its incorporation as a city was the 
largest in population in the state, the city did not extend much west of Main 
Street. Broad Street was laid out a little more than sixty years ago. In 1830,^ 
College Street, then known as '• Henshaw Lane," ended where now it crosses 
Broad Street. And so it is very pleasant to look back occasionally over the 
leaves of the past. A deal of interest clusters about these old structures which 
still stand, silent reminders of generations long since departed. It is well that 
they are preserved as monuments of the early history of this goodly town. 

The church and state were one for a long period after the town was 
settled. In his article on "The Religious life of Middletown," the Rev. F. 
W. Greene has most ably sketched the life of the various churches in this city. 

From the first settlement of the town much attention has been paid to^ 
education. The subject has been quite fully discussed by Prof William North 
Rice in his article, which is printed in full in another part of this book. 
There have been a number of private schools in town, including those taught 
by Daniel H. Chase, Rev. Josiah Brewer, Miss Maria Payne, Rev. Henry M. 
Colton, the Wilson Grammer School, Westfield Falls Home School, which 
have ceased to exist, having given way to the present city High School. 
James H. Bradford, in 1875, organized a school on High Street for boys. 
Two years later the control of the school passed into the hands of Rev. B. A. 
Smith, and in 1883 it was assumed by the Misses Patten, who still conduct it as 
a school for both sexes. The public schools of the town have always been 
known for their excellency, and the present High School building is one of 
the finest in the state. 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY. I05 

iSIiddletown was up to the close of the Revolutionary War the leading 
commercial town of the Connecticut colony. It was the center of the West 
India trade for the New England colonies. Its river banks were dotted with 
wharves, at which the produce of those islands was landed, while on its streets 
were many capacious warehouses, filled with sugar, rum and molasses. The 
Revolutionary War checked that business, and Middletown girded itself anew 
to enter other fields, and in the place of the West India Man came the busy 
manufactory. The following are some of the manufacturing industries which 
have existed and do exist at the present time : 

The Middletown Manufacturing Company established a woolen mill in 
•1810, on Washington Street, and was one of the first, if not the first factory to 
use steam power. The War of iSi 2 caused them to go out of business. In 
1814, John R. Watkinson started a woolen factory in Pameacha. In 1838 his 
factory closed. The Rockfall Woolen Company was established in 18S2. 
Firearms were manufactured here by Oliver Bidvvell, Colonel Booth, Colonel 
Nathan Starr, Ji"-, J- R- and J. D. Johnson, and the Savage Revolving Firearm 
•Company. Ammunition was made here during the Civil War by the Sage 
■Company. Sanseer Manufacturing Company was incorporated in 1823, and is 
now a part of the Russell Company. Wilcox, Crittenden & Co. were or- 
ganized in 1850. Russell Manufacturing Co. was organized in 1834; the 
■Goodyear Rubber Co. in 1875 > ^^^- ^ ^- Douglas in 1832 ; Rogers & Hub- 
bard Co. in 1878; L. D. Brown & Son Co. in 1850, and removed to this city 
in 1871 ; William Wilcox Co. in 1845 ! ^^- ^- Chapman & Co in 1876 ; the 
Arawana Mills at their present location in 1881 ; J. O. Smith Co. in 1828; 
the Union Mills in 1834; the Allison Bros, in 1810 ; the Hall Bros.' File 
Works in 1865 ; Johnson Brickyard in 1856 ; Tuttle Brickyard in 1846; Port- 
land Silk Mill in 1898 ; Keating Wheel Co. in 1898 ; Middletown Bell Co. in 
1898 ; Kirby Manufacluring Co. in 1890. There are also a number of other 
manufacturing companies which have been established here, but have been 
absorbed by other companies and removed elsewhere, among which are the 
Middletown Plate Co., Schuyler Electric Co., Stiles & Parker Press Co., the 
Victor Sewing Machine Co. Among the recent companies established here are 
the Middletown Silver Co., the Omo Co., and the Doebler Manufacturing Co. 

Middletown is the home of several benevolent institutions, among which 
are the State Hospital for the Insane, which was formally opened April 30, 
1868 ; Industrial School for Girls, June 30, 1872 ; St. Luke's Home, incor- 
porated in 1S65 ; and the Orphan's H me in 1876. 

Among the men who have been prominent in the history of Middletown 
are : Rev. Samuel Stow, the Hamlins, John, Giles and Jabez ; Commodore 
McDonough, William L. Storrs, Henry R. Storrs, James T. Pratt, Gen. J. K. 
F. Mansfield, the Alsop family, John Fisk, Rev. Samuel F. Jarvis, Hon. 
Ebenezer Jackson, Jr., Hon. Samuel D. Hubbard, Postmaster-General in 
1852; Hon. Henry G. Hubbard, Hon. Julius Hotchkiss, Lieutenant Covernor 
in 1870; Jonathan Kiibourne, Hon. Benjamin Douglas, Lieutenant-Governor 
in 1861 and '62; Gen. E. W. N. Starr, the Russell family, Rt. Rev. John 
Williams, Rev. Wilbur Fisk, D. D., first President of Wesleyan University; 
Dr. John Osborn, Dr. Thomas Miner, Drs. Henry and Charles Woodward, 
Hon. Titus Hosmer, Samuel Whittlesey Dana, Samuel Holden Parsons, Hon. 
Samuel L. Warner, and many others. At the present time Middletown 
numbers among its citizens many who have been prominent in the affairs of 
the state, and who occupy high positions on the bench, and in all the walks 
of life. 

The Middletown Probate District was organized in 1752, and at the time 
included Chatham, Haddam and Durham. The present Custom House and 



(io6 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY. 



■Postoffice building was erected in 1835,3! a cost of $12,289. The first Col- 
lector of Customs was George Phillips, appointed in June, 1795. The last was 
the late Augustus Putnam. The first Postmaster was VVensley Hobby, ap- 
pointed 1775. He held office until October, 1807. The first Alms House in 
Middletown was completed in 18 14. It was also used as a jail. The present 
Town Farm was bought in 1853. 

The Middletown ferry was established by the General Court in 1726. 
The fare was established at six pence for man, horse and load, three pence for 
■single person or a horse. The next year the price was increased to twelve 
(Pence and four pence respectively. The Portland and Middletown bridge was 




OFFICE OF THE EVENING TRIBUNE. 

♦erected in 1896, and the Ferry Company went out of existence. The town 
liberally subscribed to the Air Line and Valley railroads, the aggregate amount- 
ing to $1,137,000. The City Court was incorporated in 1879, and Judge 
William T. Elmer was the first Judge. 

Middletown has had a number of papers, among which have been : The 
JVews and Advertiser, Middlesex Gazette, 17 85 -183 4; Neiv England Advocate, 
1834-1835; Connecticut Spectator, Sentinel and Witness, 1823-1899; The Moni- 
tor, The Oasis and The Kainboiv, The Constitution, 1838-1885. These were 
..all weekly papers. There have been several attempts to establish a daily paper, 
the first being Tlic Constitution, July i, 1847; The Daily Neivs, The Daily 
Herald, The Daily Rcpul^lican and The Journal have ceased to exist. The 
present papers are The Penny Press and The Evening Tribune. 

Among tlie famous hotels are the Bigelow Tavern, where S. T. Camp's 
store now stands ; the Central Hotel, which occupied the site of the present 
McDonough House; the Washington Hotel, built in 1812, now the residence 
of Dr. Samuel Hart. The Mansion House, now called the Forest City Hotel, 
•was built about 1827. The old Kilbourn House was destroyed by fire in 1873. 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY. lO;- 

The McDonoiigh House was built in 1852. The other hotels in the city are 
of recent origin. 

Middletown's Fire De|)artnient is a comparatively recent institution, as 
prior to 1803 there was no fire com])any, and bucket brigades were relied upon 
to extinguish fires. None of the i^resent fire companies have been in existence 
over fifty years. The i)resent commodious Fire Department Headquarters was 
erected in 1899. 

The Middletown Gas Light Company was incorporated in May, 1853, ^^^^ 
the first system of water works was built in 1866. 

The Middletown Bank, now the Middletown National Bank, was chartered 
in 1795 and organized in 1801 ; the Middlesex County Bank, August 31, 1830; 
the Central Bank, August i, 1851, and became a national bank in 1865 ; the 
First National Bank in 1864; Middletown Savings Bank in 1825 ; Farmers & 
Mechanics Savings Bank in 1858; the Middlesex Banking Co. in 1862, and 
the Jackson Co., under its present name, in 1899, though it had been in busi- 
ness for a number of years previous under the name of C. E. Jackson & Co. 

In 1809, Middletown is credited as being the home of the Marine Fire 
Insurance Company. Previous to that date there was one insurance company, 
organized in October, 1803, and in 1813 another was organized. Since that 
time the People's Fire Insurance Company existed for a number of years. The 
Middlesex Assurance Company was organized in 1836. 

The first public library in this town was established in 1797; the second 
one in 1809. The present Russell Library, through the munificence of Mrs. 
Frances A. Russell, widow of the late Samuel Russell, was incorporated June 
i3> 1875. 

The present Y. M. C. A. building, whose corner-stone was laid in 1893^ 
stands on the site of the residence of Commodore McDonough. 

There are at the present time a large number of fraternal organizations. 
St. John's Lodge, No. 2, A. F. and A. AL, was given a dispensation in 1733. 
Washington Chapter, No. 6, R. A. M., was formed in 1783. The first meeting 
of the Grand Chapter of Northern States of America was held here in Septem- 
ber, 1798, and the septennial meeting of the General Grand Chapter, January 
9, 1806. Cyrene Commandery, No. 8, K. T., was instituted December 19, 
1867. The Central Lodge, No. 12, I. O. O. F., was instituted June 12, 1843; 
Schiller Lodge, No. 92, February 11, 1874. Sowheag Encampment was in- 
stituted September 27, 1844, and later on Canton Excelsior, Patriarchs Mili- 
tant. None of the other fraternal organizations were organized prior to 1872. 

At the present time the same business spirit that has always characterized 
the town exists, and in the number of its stores and in the size of its blocks, 
and in the amount of freight received and shipped, Middletown will compare 
favorably with any town of its size in the country. It offers to manufacturers- 
who may be looking for a home, ample railroad and water facilities, and the 
outlook for the growth of the city and town is very bright. 



E. E. ELLSWORTH & CO, 



COMPLETE HOUSE FURNISHERS 

AND PLUMBERS. ; 

Large and Up-to-Date Stock of 

Parlor, Gtiainber, Dining-Room and Kitchen Furnitur 

Bedding, Carpets, Shades, Mattings, 
Draperies, Lace and Muslin Curtains, 
Mats and Rugs, Curtain Rods and 
Poles, Upholstering Goods, Etc. 



STOVES and RAI^C^ES. 

Our Leaders are the Magee Range and 
Beckwith's Round Oak Heaters. 



Crockery, Glass-Ware, Tin-Ware, Wooden-Ware, 
Table Cutlery, Lamps, Etc Bicycles and Supplies. 

Sole Agent for Kelsey, Magee and Gurnev Heaters. 

A Well-Equipped Plumbing and Tinning Department, 

And Competent Workmen constantly Employed I 

N0 eeNTRACT TOe 12AR6E F0R dS. 

Gravel Roofing and General Jobbing in Our Line ! 

We invite the public to call at our Store and get our prices, 
Which we claim to be the lowest in the city. 

E. E. ELLSWORTH & CO., 

352 Main St., - - Middletown, Conn. 



1650 MATTABESECK 




MIDDLETOWN 1900 




THE SECOND COURT HOUSE. 



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